234 PROCEEDINGS OF SCTION D. 



column consisting of the united stamens and style, all very highly organised 

 bodies as compared with their homologues in orchids, in which family the 

 column has no evident motion, though, as might have been expected 

 from the concrete nature of the individualism of their flowers, many orchids 

 evince irritability, as in Caleana, Pterostylis, etc., where the labellum is very 

 sensible. In consequence of the concrete nature of the individualism of 

 the column of Styiidiuni. the resultant forces are more localised— and 

 therefore intensified — than in most other plants, residing entirely in a gland 

 (the analogue of the nervous-ganglion of animals) situated at the base of the 

 colunm, and the irritation of this gland by any foreign substance causes the 

 whole column to jerk quickly from one side of the flower to the other, for 

 which reason the Australian colonists call this plant (of which there are many 

 species) " Jack-in-the-box." The fronds also of Cycads (at least according 

 to my observations on two species of iWac>'0.?fl;nifl) evince the concrete nature 

 of their individualism by nightly assuming that state which Linnaeus called 

 ih^ sleep of plants." (Pp. 474-6 under Chap. VI. — Life.) 



Mr. H. Stuart Dove, of Cunninghame, Victoria, has politely 

 forwarded me some personal reminiscences of Mr. Oldfield's 

 declining days, when, quite blind, he used to live in a cottage in 

 Merton-road, Wandsworth, London, consoled by a portion of his 

 herbarium, a specimen of which his visitors would describe as well 

 as they could to the sightless man, and he would then give the 

 botanical name and particular's concerning it. 



Planchon, J. E. 



See " Universite de Montpellier, L' Institut de Botanique." 

 Notice, par Ch. Flauhault " (1890), p. 54. 



SCHOMBURGK, RiCHARD. See (2), p. 176, 181. 



There is an obituary notice in Proc. Roy. Soc, N.S.W., xxv, 

 3, and a portrait in " The Garden and Field," Adelaide, December, 

 1907, p. 487. 



Scott, Thomas, Dr. See (4), p. 26. 

 See GuNN, Ronald, 



Stirling, James. 



Acting Government Geologist of Victora for some years ; 

 C.M.G. He died at Riverside, California, in 1909, and there is 

 an obituary notice of him in the Melbourne " Age " for 5th August, 

 1909. 



He travelled extensively for geological purposes in the Vic- 

 torian Alps, and wrote on the plants, most of which were deter- 

 mined for him by Mueller. His papers include : — 



(a) " Notes on the Flora of Mount Hotham " (Vict. Nat. 



iv, 72), and the following in Trans. Roy. Soc, Vict. : 



(b) " The Phanerogamia of the Mitta Mitta Source Basin 



and their Habitats " (Part i. in xix., 1 ; Pai^t ii. in xxi. 29). 



(c) "The Cryptogamia of the Australian Alps" (Part i. in 



xxii., 49). 

 Helichrysiim Stirlingi, F. V. M., commemorates him. • 



