OPENING OF PALM SPATHES WITH AN AUDIBLE REPORT. 69 
* About 11 a.m. on Sunday last, two young men (Gale and Hilary) 
employed in the great Palm-stove of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 
were startled by a report almost loud enough to have proceeded from a 
pistol. On looking round, it was found that one of the large Ptycho- 
sperma Cunninghami, Herm, Wendl., had burst its spathe, and in doing 
so forced off the remnant of an old leaf-stalk, about three feet long and 
more than a foot broad. For a long time Alexander von Humboldt (com- 
pare * Views of Nature’ and ‘ Cosmos,’ vol.ii. p. 10) stood alone amongst 
the moderns as an observer of this curious phenomenon, which reminded 
him of Pindar’s Dithyrambus on Spring, and the moment when in 
Argive Nemea * the first opening shoot of the Date Palm announces the 
coming of balmy spring.’ It was subsequently confirmed by Sir Robert 
Schomburgk (* Travels in British Guiana,’ vol. ii. p. 376); but there has 
been no other confirmation, which renders the observation made at Kew 
highly acceptable. The sudden bursting with an audible report is pro- 
bly due to a great accumulation of heat, developed by the anthers 
. whilst enclosed inside the spathe. From the familiar manner in which 
Pindar alludes to this loud bursting, one would be inclined to infer that 
the phenomenon was a common one with regard to the Date Palm. Yet 
it is strange that we have no modern observations on that point,—at 
least I could find none when I wrote my ‘ Popular History of the Palms?’ 
those of Humboldt and Schomburgk relating to Oreodoxa regia." — 
Berthold Seemann.t 
“ Notes in reference to the Bursting of the Spathe of Ptychosperma Cun- 
nighami, read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, and pub- 
lished in the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle, June 25, 1862." By Mr. J. 
SADLER and Mr. W. BELL. 
* "The authors first referred to am article which had lately appeared 
tals, and the anthers oblong. The drupe is red in the true P. Seaforthia, and 
wing of P. Cunninghami may be relied upon in this nein (the flowers d 
i our . 
; rv amulis n 
pathis 2, spadicibus floribns filamentisque purpurascentibus, spadicibus penduils, 
B 
um pet 
oblongis, drupis ovalibus, nucleo leviter B-sulcato.—Seaforthia 
Mag. t. 4961, non R. Brown.—B. Seemann. Tm r i 
ners’ Chronicle,’ July 20, 1861, and ‘Bonplandia, vol. ix. p. 
(August 1, 1861). 
