150 CORRESPONDENCE. 
the * Journal of Botany,’ as to the explosion of the fruits of Hure crepitans. ` 
an open box. Some time afterwards I heard, in the middle of the night, a 
erackling, which was soon followed by the projection of a great number of little 
bodies against the walls and the ceiling. Y could not at first understand what 
this could be, but I subsequently found my pods burst and the seeds scattered ; 
the dryness of my room had in the course of a few days caused the development 
of the greatest amount of elastic force in these fruits." * 
: Maxwzrn T. Masters, M.D-- 
Opening of Palm Spathes with an Audible Report. |... 
Kew, Aprit 5. 
bable a suggestion. In the first place, however, I must acknowledge that I am 
indebted for these facts to Mr. Walker, the intelligent foreman of the Palm- 
house in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, who is a shrewd observer, and has 
been closely watching the flowering of this Palm for some time past. 
The plant at Kew flowers frequently, and Mr. Walker informs me that the - 
making any noise, and remain attached to the base of the peduncle for a con- 
siderable time afterwards. But at other times the leaf persists, until the in- 
florescence is much more fully matured, and then: both the leaf and. the two 
spathes are forced off and fall to the ground together, just as they did upon 
the occasion when the report of the explosion was heard at Kew. It has been 
ed by way of argument against the theory of beat being the cause of this 
explosion, that at the period of the bursting of the spathes the flowers. are 
* * Œuvres d'Histoire Naturelle de Goethe,’ etc., traduits par C. F. Martins, p. 205. 
Paris, 1837, 
