420 Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 
Temperature. 
Maximum. Minimum. Rain in inches. 
Oo 
1841. 83:5 June 8. 29-0 Jan. 22 and 23. 
1642. ,°82°0 May 31. ". 27") Beb.7 ® 61°226. 
1843. ~ 81°8 June 19: 3Y°5 Jan. 10 93°147. 
1844, 77:3 ,, 22. 24°3 Jan. 13 and 15. | 103-8362 
TS45. 782 -". 20h 8O"S Neh lz. 116°363. 
Weder te fee Te a Wee Rs ee ee 113°145. 
Mean. 54:29 
Dr. Balfour read a description of Sabal umbraculifera, a palm 
which is now in fruit in the Botanic Garden. It has a stem of 9 or 
10 feet in height, still covered by the bases of the fallen leaves, which, 
in the progress of development, become split in a curious way at the 
place where they join the stem. The plant has thirty flabelliform 
fronds, the petioles of which are 12 feet in length, and the lamine 7 or 8 
feet long, with about 100 laciniz or folds. The branching spadices 
are 6 feet in length ; they are surrounded by numerous partial spathes, 
and at present exhibit enormous clusters, containing several thousand 
fruits of the size of large grapes. The fruit has a fleshy mesocarp, 
and contains only one perfect seed, which has a brown spermoderm, 
a cartilaginous white uniform perisperm, and a small dorsal embryo. 
Specimens of the large fruiting spadix, the split petiole, and reticulum 
of the palm, were exhibited. 
Dr. Balfour also described Phenix sylvestris, a specimen of which 
is flowering at present in the Botanic Garden. This palm has pin- 
nate fronds 7 or 8 feet in length, and a spatha which splits on one 
side at its upper part, forming a boat-shaped crowning of the spadix. 
A specimen of a spathe inclosing a branching spadix of male flowers 
was exhibited. 
Dr. Douglas Maclagan read the following Notice regarding some 
articles of the Vegetable Materia Medica. 
Prunus Virginiana.— Under this name, borrowed from the United 
States’ Pharmacopeeia, a bark has, during the last year or so, been 
employed in considerable quantity in this country as a medicine, and 
has found favour with several medical men. ‘This, it is presumed, 
is the bark which is officinal in the United States, and which, though 
bearing in the Pharmacopeeia, U.S., the designation of Prunus Vir- 
giniana, is not the bark of the plant which was so named by Linneeus. 
The Prunus Virginiana of Linneeus is a small shrub, resembling Ce- 
rasus Padus, bearing a small dark red globular astringent fruit, which 
is known in America by the name of Choke Cherry. The Prunus 
Virginiana of the United States’ Pharmacopeeia is the bark of a tree 
of from 60 to 100 feet high, the Cerasus serotina (DC.), the Wild 
or Black Cherry of the Americans, but which Michaux appears to 
have confounded with the shrubby plant, and has also named Cerasus 
Virginiana. Sir W. Hooker, in the ‘Flor. Boreal. Amer.,’ adopts 
Michaux’s name for the large tree, but has obviously transposed the 
two names, for he quotes Linnzus’s synonym of Prunus Virginiana 
for the large tree, and applies the name C. serotina (DC.) to the 
