1862.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 29 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 



New Material for Making Paper. 



Indian-corn straw, it seems, was used for tlie manufacture of paper in 

 Italy last century ; but tlie manufacture declined, and the art was lost. 

 An Austrian, M. Moritz Diamant, has re-discovered the process, and Count 

 Charles of Lippe-Weissenfeld and some Swiss paper-makers are working- 

 it. The paper made from the Indian-corn straw is reported to be much 

 better than from rags, being stronger and more tenacious, and a very small 

 quantity of size is necessary to fit it for writing-paper. It is easy to bleach 

 the fibre, and when used for packing-paper no bleaching is requisite. The 

 paper has none of the brittleness peculiar to ordinary straw paper, arising 

 from the large quantity of silica present in the straw. No machinery is 

 requisite to convert the Indian-corn straw into pidp ; and as the mode of 

 manufixcture is altogether much simpler than that followed in the case of 

 rags, it is said that the paper will be much cheaper. 



HeLLEBORUS VIRIDIS. 



" We knowe (sayth Columella) a present remedy of the roote whych the 

 shepherdes cal consiligo, that groweth in great plentie in mersis moun- 

 taynes, and it is very holsume for aU catteU. They saye it shulde be used 

 thus ; the brodest parte of the ear must haue a rounde circle made aboute 

 it wyth the blood that tyneth fm-th, wyth a brasene botkyne (bodkin), and 

 the same circle must be rounde lyke unto the letter O ; and when thys is 

 done wythout, and in the hygher part of the eare, the halfe of the foresayd 

 cyrcle is to be bored thorowe wyth the foresayd botkyne (bodkin), and the 

 roote of the herbe is to be put in at the hole, whyche when the newe 

 wonnde hathe receyued, holdeth it so faste that it wyll not let it goo forthe : 

 and then all the myght and pestilent poyson of the disease is brought so 

 into the eare. And whyles the part whyche is circled aboute dyeth and 

 falleth away, the hole beast is saued wyth the lose of veiy sinaUe part." — 

 Erora Turner s Herbal, part i., page 65. 



Castanea vulgaris. 

 I observe that this tree, in some of our modern works on botany, is 

 called an alien, but why I know not. If length of abode in plants, as in 

 many other things, constitutes naturalization, I think the chestnut cannot 

 properly be called an alien* It appears from Lambard's History of Kent, 

 date 1570, that " this county had whole woodes that beare chesnut :" and 

 Dr. Wm. Turner, in his Herbal, notices the tree, and says, " Chesmit-trees 

 grow plentuously in Kent, abroad inthefeldes, and in many gardens in Eng- 

 land." Evelyn in his 'Sylva' gives a full description of the chestnut, and tells 

 us " of a famous chestnut-tree at Tamworth in Gloucestershire, which has 

 continued a signal boundary to that manor, in King Stephen's time as it 

 stands upon record." The fi'uit of the chestnut is also noticed in Sii- 

 Thomas Elyot's ' Castle of Health,' as being eaten when roasted luider the 

 embers or hot ashes, to nourish the body and to help a man of the cough. 



* Sir W. J. Hooker, in his 'British Flora,' speaks of the chestnut as growing 

 in \v cods apparently wild. 



