THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 253 



Thb Royal Horticultural Society is now in a fair way of overcoming some 

 of its difficulties, for the remaining Kensiugtonian members of the council completed 

 their res'gnations at a special general meeting held July 8. The principal trade ex- 

 hibitors united in making a grand exhibition ( n the 2l3t ult. 



The Inteknation'al Fruit Exhibition which is to be held at Ghent from the 

 19th to the 24th of September, in connection with the annual meeting of the 

 Pomological Society of France, bids fair to prove a great success. The Bulletin 

 d' Arboriculture contains the full programme and regula'ions, from which we learn 

 that tliere are three committees : one for tlie Exhibition, with M. Ambiose Ver.'chaf- 

 felt as chairman, and M. Burvenich secretary ; one for the Congress, with Prof. 

 Kickx as chairman, and M. Pynaert as secretary ; and one reception Committee, to 

 arrange for banquets, excursions, etc., of which M. Pickaert Echevin, of Ghent, is 

 chairman, and lUL. Van Hulle secretary. The President is II. le Comte de Kerchove 

 de Denterghem, Burgomaster of Ghent, and the general secretary is M. Eoiiigas. 

 All communications should be addressed to M. Burvenich. There are seventy-one 

 classes in the schedule for various fruits, -with gold, silver, and bronze medals for 

 prizes. The C mgress will be under the direction of the Pomological Society of 

 France, and will devote its attention spetially to fruits sent for study and compari- 

 son, to the best modes of training, and to various other matters appertaining to fiuit 

 culture. 



The British Bef.-Keepers' Association's Exhibition at the Crystal Palace 

 last year was so successful that the committeehas been induced to announce a second 

 exhibition to take pi ice tliis year. The work already done by and througli the 

 means of the Association has awakened throughout the United Kingdom so great 

 an interest in bee culture that the committee trust the industry will in a little time 

 acquire as great attention and be as much valued for the poor man's harvest as it 

 already is on the continents of Europe and America. About £100 has been al otted 

 for the prize schedule now announced, which the committee hope will be subscribed 

 by the friends of the movement. The committee only await the financial means to 

 extend their operations in various ways thit have been pointed out as desirable. 

 Mr. John Hunter, Eaton Else, Ealing, Middlesex, is the honorary secretary. 



I^SECTIVOK0L-s Plants. — At a recent meeting of the Edinburgh Botanical 

 Society, Dr. Balfour read notes of experiments he had been making on Dionaea 

 muscipula and allied plants. These experiments confirmed the suspicions cnter- 

 tainel by Ellis, Cnrtis, Hooker, and Darwin that tlie Dionsea is a carnivorous plant. 

 Dr. Balfour classified the facts he had observed in regard to it umier the heads of 

 irritability, contraction, secretion, di;:estion, and absorption. The irritability, it 

 seems, is resident in certain delicate hairs, so placed on the surface of the leaf that 

 no insect can avoid touching them in crawling over. Dr. Balfour touched with a 

 needle every other part of the leaf, and no response followed ; but no sooner was 

 the point applied to one of these hairs than a contraction of the leaf ensued. 

 Chloroform dropped on a hair caused the leaf to close like a winking eye, but water 

 had no such effect. It was only when the olject seized was capable ot affording 

 nutrition that the contraction continued for any considerable length of time. A 

 piece of wood was soon released, and so was a dried fly; but when a live fly or 

 caterpillar or spider was enclosed the contraction lasted, on an average, for about 

 three weeks. The leaf at the same time, gave out a vise jus acid secretion. This 

 appe^ired to be only the case when an insect was captured, and it was always 

 present on suih occasiors ; but whereas with a fat spider it was abundant, with a 

 shrivelled fly there was very little. The notion that any nourishment A'as obtained 

 from insects so enclosed hss been controverted ; but Dr. Balfour pointed significantly 

 to the facts, that young plants of Dionxa under bell-glasses had been found not to 

 thrive so well as those left free, and that while a piece of leaf wrapped in another 

 leaf became putrid, a piece enclosed by the Dionaja remained perfectly inodorous, 

 but soon lost its red colour, and was gradually disintegrated more and more till it 

 was reduced to pulp. 



Blanching E.n'divk. — S. writer in the Moniteur Ilorticole BAge states that 

 endive mny be blanched successfully by being planted in very well -prepared soil at 

 six inches apart instead of in the usual more open way. When established, each 

 bed is enclosed with planks eight inches wide, set on edge, to prevmt the outer 

 plants Hprcadiai^. When vigorous growth commetK es, the plants are pressed 

 close together and bhinch without further attention, as the leaves are not injured, 



AogaEt, 



