CORRESPONDENCE. 151 
air.confined within the latter would ultimately expand to such a degree 
their. et would be a necessary. consequence ; and as both these aca 
in this particular Palm are entirely closed, and of a sb tough papery tex- 
ture, a denote report. might pobi oceur,, The fe male Somera do not 
open until.some time after the male, and thi unts for the 
Kew plant.never having produced perfect fruits, Indeed it would seem that 
in.our hothouses moncecious Palms, not unfrequently fail in this respect, even 
when both sexes of fiowers are, as in the case of this species, upon the same 
spadix: Mr. M*Nab writes me that the plant of P. Cunninghami in the Palm- 
house at Edinburgh flowers frequently, but produced perfect fruits upon one 
occasion only, and that in abundance; and in this instance the fruits were 
scarcely half an inch in diameter and of a dark-brown colour when ripe, not 
red, as those of P. Seaforthia in Bauer's drawing. As an instance of the un- 
oe connected with the fruiting of Palms, he also informs me that the 
plant of Euterpe montana, Grah., at the same place, Bran fruit abun- 
ur about fifteen years ago, and, althoügh it has since flow ly 
every. year, it has never again ripened fruit fit for germination ul the present 
year, when two large clusters. were produced. 
ALEXANDER SMITH. 
Popular Names of British Plants. 
d Worcester, April 4, 1863. 
- Posty the Several explanation of the word “March” may be of some 
to Dr. Pri he Welsh language, signifies horse. It is pre- 
the qualities of strength and size. “ Fat Hen” (Chenopodium Bonus- Henricus) 
‘was in use formerly, intermixed with other food, to feed poultry, who throve 
“upon it: hence the reason of the name 
ias A SUBSCRIBER, 
: - [t is an bijcolión to “A Subscriber's" derivation of “ m " from the 
“Welsh, that the same word, with allowance for dialectic differences, occurs m 
ntinental Germanic languages which have had no contact or Scpiseltin with 
“the Welsh, as e.g. in the German Wasser-merke; Danish, saeti In 
„Anglo-Saxon it is called inerce, meric, and merici. The remarks “Fat 
"He en” seem to explain the name satisfactorily ; but this use of the “plant is 
equally unnoticed in foreign as in English works, and the name was origin 
given to the Orpine (Sedum Telephium), as is the corresponding — name, 
Fette Henne, at the present day.—Ep D.] 
— MÀ 
