545 



clover layer, where I this year find it most plentifully. The author 

 of the ' British Flora' says "much more rarely I have found one of 

 these pistilliform bodies enlarged into a perfectly spherical form, tip- 

 ped with a short, slender style, the whole not larger than the eighth 

 of a perianth." He here describes, probably, an immature or abor- 

 tive capsule ; for the description answers to those which I have ex- 

 amined, excepting that the latter fill two thirds of a perianth, the 

 lower portion of which is distended by the bulk of the capsule. He 

 says further, " the contents of so small a body I could not satisfacto- 

 rily ascertain, but they appeared, when pressed out, to consist of a 

 pulpy substance." One fine one, which 1 broke open, contained 300 

 seeds, if I may so call them, each much resembling the capsule in 

 their beautiful reticulations. They differ, however, from the latter, 

 in being perfectly transparent, the light reflected from the mirror of 

 the microscope being seen through their reticulations, while the cap- 

 sule is yellow and opaque. The seeds are surrounded by a fluid 

 substance, which disappears as they ripen, and amongst them are a 

 few, irregular-shaped bodies, or collections of minute cells, of a 

 bright green colour, beautifully contrasting with the pale yellowish 

 hue of the seeds. The capsules are tough and highly elastic, bound- 

 ing away from the microscope two or three feet w^hen pressed witli a 

 needle. 



The seeds from one very ripe capsule appeared to have an aperture 

 on one side, but I have not been able to detect this appearance in 

 any others ; possibly because not sufficiently ripe. 



Geokge Fitt. 



Yarmouth, Norfolk, 

 April 21, 1846. 



Notes on the Wild and Cultivated examples of Rihes rubrum. 

 By Hewett C. Watson, Esq. 



On reading Dr. Bromfield's remarks upon the wild and garden cur- 

 rants of the Isle of Wight, in last month's ' Phytologist ' (ii, 517), T 

 proceeded to ascertain how far those in my own garden would corres- 

 pond with either of the two varieties mentioned by Dr. Bromfield, the 

 "sylvestre" and " sativum." I found the characters combined diffe- 

 rently from their combinations reported by that exact botanist. But 

 as there are several slight varieties of the red currant in cultivation. 



