80 TRAXSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lv. 



On Te.mpekature and Vegetation in the Botanic 

 Garden, Glasgow, during February 1891. By Egbert 

 BuLLEN, Curator of the Garden. 



The weather generally was dull, and fogs were frequent, 

 consequently the sun's rays were little felt, particularly 

 towards the latter part of the month ; but taken as a whole, 

 a more genial and favourable month has not been experienced 

 for many years, being comparatively free of all wet or wintry 

 associations. Frost .was registered on fifteen mornings ; the 

 lowest reading was 7° on the morning of the 9th. The total 

 frost was 55°. The day readings were all high, the mean 

 being higher than for any corresponding month since 1884. 

 There was just sufficient frost to prevent undue excitement 

 in vegetation, which was little further advanced than at the 

 close of the last month. 



Professor Bayley Balfour communicated the following 

 extract from a letter he had received from Mr Graham Kerr, 

 Naturalist to the Pilcomayo Expedition : — 



" S.S. ' Bolivia,' Eio Pilcomayo, 

 December 12, 1890. 



" In its physical features the Gran Chaco, at least in the portion 

 traversed by us, presents many points of resemblance to the Llanos 

 of the Orinocco. We have a flat plain, stretching out in all direc- 

 tions, covered with tall and waving grass, and, as a rule, thickly 

 dotted with * carandai ' fan-palms — a region, as the discoloured 

 lowered ]iortion of the palm-stems tells us, liable to frequent if not 

 annual inundation to the extent of several feet. The grasses 

 belong to several but not very numerous distinct species, many of 

 which are common to the Pampas of ]>uenos Ayres ; and amongst 

 them may be found an interesting and characteristic herbaceous 

 flora. Of course I can only give you the merest outline of this, 

 as I have no botanical work of reference with me. Several plants 

 common in the Buenos Ayres Pampas occur here again, in par- 

 ticular the two verbenas — the scarlet flowered and the purple 

 flowered one — are here just as abundant and as characteristic as 

 they are in the south. A third sj)ecies, also with purple flowers, 

 but in which tlie leaves are of linear shape, is also very common. 

 Of other Bicarpellates, a convolvulus with large white flowers 

 creeps over the ground in all directions, a small Nicotiana-\\\iQ 

 plant with white flowers, and a little asclepiad, are all common — 



