164 CORRESPONDENCE. 



was whether it rotated from left to right or from right to left, and in the 

 end there seemed to be au opinion that it depended " upon how you looked 

 at it." In a similar way, if a chmbing plant is said to twine from left to 

 right in ascending, different meanings will be found to be attached to 

 this simple statement by different persons. But such indefiniteness 

 would be intolerable, and a clear, precise rule has long been laid down, 

 which if well understood will speedily decide every question of the land. 

 When au object rotates or revolves, its motion must be performed about 

 some central axis, which remains for the moment relatively fixed. 

 Suppose youi-self to be this axis, and fix yoiu' attention on some particular 

 point of the object. This point will, during some part of its com-se, 

 pass over your breast ; if, while doing so, it crosses from right to left, the 

 rotation or revolution is said to be from right to left, and vice iK'rsa. The 

 hop and the honeysuckle are said to twine from left to right ; this means 

 that if you suppose the plant coiled round your own body, the growing 

 point will move from the left to the right hand, in passing over j'our 

 breast. Similarly, the scarlet runner and the passion flower twine from 

 right to left. The hands of a watch, placed face upwards, turn fx'om left 

 to right, as also does the sun in our hemisphere but in the southern 

 hemisphere he moves from right to left. — W. B. G. 



White Vabieties of Plants. — Perhaps Mr. Mott will be pleased to 

 know of another locality for the white vai'iety of Prunella i-ulgaris. I 

 found it gi'owiug near the shores of Llyu Coron, (the habitat of Elatine 

 hexandra and Hijdrojnper,) in Anglesea, where it was leather plentiful and 

 vei-y showy, it certainly appeared to be a well-marked variety. In 

 Nant Fraucon occurred the white form of Diyitalis, I have also gathered 

 it near Birnam Hill, Perth. The rare white Lamitim j^itrjntreum may be 

 found in Northants, on the site of Rockingham Forest ; and some young 

 friends of mine brought me specimens fr-om cultivated fields, near 

 Hardingstone, in this county. Perhaps the most singular albino ever 

 found was Papaver Eliceas, perfectly white, but in other respects similar 

 to the type. On the borders of L. 'Ancresso and the Grand Havre, 

 Guernsey, the white form of Krodium maritimum was prevalent, almost to 

 the exclusion of the ordinary form ; and, as Prof. Babington pointed out in 

 the Prim. Floraa Sarnicce, the flesh-colom-ed variety carnea, of anagaUis 

 arve7isits, is frequent on the Quenvais, Jersey, and L 'Auci-esse, Guernsey. 

 I have gathered white Campanula roiiuidifolia at Aberglaslyu, at 

 Harleston, Northants, &c., &c. Erica cinerea, white, at Kingsthoi-pe, 

 Northants ; Calluna vnUjaris, white, at Harleston, Northants ; and 

 Conwyl in Carmarthenshire. One of the most lovely albinos I ever saw 

 was Menzieaia polifolia, which I gathered in Kylemore Pass, Connemara. 

 Geranium Itobertianum, var. alb., occurs in Northants, at Eothersthorpe ; 

 Scabiosa columbaria on the Downs, between Lewes and Brighton ; 

 Carduus arvensis and acanthoides in Northants, at Yardley Gobion ; 

 Campanula latifolia, white, at Troutbeck, Westmoreland. In concluding 

 these scattered notes, I might just add that the locality for the white 

 form of Erodium maritimum and moscliatum, the sandy shores of the Grand 

 Ha\Te, and portion of the Braye du Valle, Guernsey, was also the habitat 

 for the Silene ijuinquevulvera, which exhibited there its richest colours 

 and most type-like appearance, and for the variety modestum, of geranium 

 Bobertianum. — G. C. Druce. 



©leanings. 



Mosses. — We have Mr. Bagnall's second ai-ticle " On the Study of 

 the Mosses " in type, but are reluctantly comiielled to withhold it till next 

 mouth, in couaequeuce of the illustrative plate not being quite ready. 



