Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 231 



oblong, but the capsules, when fully ripe, become so open that the 

 spikeletsjbecome subglobose. The scales are small, shorter than 

 the capsule and somewhat obtuse ; the capsules are acute, of a 

 tawny or brownish colour, the margins being somewhat obtuse 

 and quite entire. The Carex leporina, Huds., Leers, Lightf., 

 Ehrh., Wahl., is merely a synonyme of C. ovalis, Gooden. — 

 Letter, dated \9>th December 1837, J'rom Dr Balfour to the 

 Editor, Professor Jameson. 



18. Macquart and Hope's Experiments on the Colours of 

 Plants.— ^Oin readers are informed, in answer to a query, that 

 at pp. 429 and 430 of the twentieth volume of this Journal, 

 will be found an abstract of the results of Dr Macquart''s expe- 

 riments, as given by himself, in his work entitled " Die Far- 

 ben der Bliithen ;" and in our twenty-first volume, pp. 315, 316, 

 and 317, a notice of Dr Hope's memoir, entitled ^^Observations 

 and Experiments on the Coloured and Colourable Matters in 

 the Leaves and Floioers of Plants, partictdarlij in reference, 

 to the principles upon which Acids and Alkalies act in produc- 

 ing Red, and Yellow or Green."" 



19. On the Floating Masses of Fucus occurring near the 

 Cape Verd Islands. — M. Kunth lately presented to the Aca- 

 demy of Sciences of Paris, in the name of M. Meyen of Berlin, 

 a specimen of the Sargassum nutans (Fucus natans, Linn.), 

 brought from the celebrated Mar de Saigasso, near the Cape 

 Verd Islands. M. Kunth remarked, that this individual, like 

 all the others observed by M. Meyen in these latitudes, does 

 not present the slightest trace of a point of attachment. It 

 was therefore never attached to rocks or to any other supporting- 

 body at any period of its growth, but must have been developed 

 floating on the surface of the sea. The opinion generally 

 adopted by voyagers, that these plants have been torn from 

 their original situations by the waves, and collected by currents 

 in the Mar de Saragossa, appears to M. Meyen to be inadmis- 

 sible ; and he is inclined to believe that they have been pro- 

 duced at the place where they are observed. The same natu- 

 ralist maintains that such individuals formed at the surface of 

 the water never exhibit fructification. 



