423 • 



dark colour, margined with green ; also in the involucres and peduncles 

 being almost or entirely destitute of stellate pubescence. H. caesium, 

 from the same place, and from Cronkley Scar, has narrow, acute 

 involucral scales, and usually a large amount of stellate down on the 

 peduncles and involucres. H. plumbeum flowers very early (say 

 about July), while H. caesium is in perfection or nearly so in Septem- 

 ber. I have the plant in cultivation from Falcon Glints ; and under 

 these circumstances it becomes still more dissimilar. It agrees well 

 with my Norwegian specimens, and still better than they do with the 

 description in Fries's ' Monograph.' " 



Mr. M'Nab read the following extract of a letter from Dr. Gilbert 

 M'Nab, dated Jamaica, November 1, 1851 : — " Some time ago I sent 

 you some dried specimens of a small plant, which I supposed was a 

 floating aquatic fern ; but since I wrote you I have discovered what 

 it is. In the water-tank in my garden is a very large and luxuriant 

 plant of the Nymphaea ampla, which seeds very freely. The seeds 

 are surrounded by a spongy-looking arillus, which floats to the sur- 

 face all those that get disengaged from the mud, where the capsule is 

 ripened ; and whilst floating on the surface they there vegetate, and 

 after a time sink and take root in the mud. The small, leaf-looking 

 bodies are the submersed leaves of the plant ; they are of a similar 

 shape, but totally different in texture from the floating leaves. I also 

 notice in the N. ampla what I have never seen in any of the family, 

 viz., that it produces as many purely male flowers as it does herma- 

 phrodite. I have not yet seen any purely female flower, although I 

 dare say I shall. I was thinking of putting some up in brine, as they 

 may be interesting." 



Mr. M'Nab also read the following extract of a letter from Mr. John 

 Goldie, Ayr, Canada West (late of Ayrshire) : — " I observed in the 

 ' North British Agriculturist ' that at one of your botanical meetings 

 there was a discussion about what kind of trees were generally struck 

 with lightning. Since I came here I have learned something on that 

 subject. One morning no less than four trees were struck by light- 

 ning within three miles of this place, one of them close at hand. Of 

 the four trees alluded to all were gigantic specimens of the Weymouth 

 pine {Pinus Strobus). Indeed, I may say that I do not recollect 

 seeing any other sort of tree being injured by lightning in this part of 

 the country. Whether this occurs from the pine being taller and more 

 pointed than any other of the trees here, or from any other cause, I 

 shall not presume to say. In all the lightning-struck trees which I 

 have examined the electric fluid proceeded from the top to the root, 



