1862.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 95 



as Mr. Camden tells us, as it now does among the Welsh. Why the Bri- 

 tons should call this herb " Glasse " I know no better reason than be- 

 cause it resembles some kind of glass in colour, which we know hath often 

 a tincture of blue in it ; whence also a dilute blue is called " color 

 hyalinus." — Frovt Bishop Gibson s ' Camden,^ 



Erysimum Alliaeia, or Alliarea officinalis. 



This plant is brought into gardens in some parts of Wales, cultivated 

 and used in broths, etc. {testibus the worthy rector and clerk of our 

 parish) ; also I have heard of its being boiled and eaten as greens. It is 

 rather remarkable, that here in North Wales this plant is known to the 

 common people by our ordinary English name, "Jack by the Hediije." 



W. P. 



Llandderfel, Sejjtemler, 1861. 



Cape Geraniums. 

 " I was most gratified on meeting, as with old fnends, with several 

 sorts of Geraniums growing in their native state. The horse-shoe and 

 plaiu-leaved scarlet were cpute large shrubs, sometimes six or seven feet 

 high. The dark Oak-leaved kind grew vigorously. The Ivy-leaved variety 

 spread its creeping branches over the adjacent trees, and opened its pink 

 blossoms in great abundance. In other places I noticed several of the 

 finer-leaved Felargouiums, with small and delicately-pencilled fiowers," — 

 From Ellis's ' Tour in Madagascar,' p. 199. 



Cocos NUCIFERA, var. pygmcea. 



The ' Gardeners' Chronicle ' says that " a very great and wholly unex- 

 pected event has occurred in the history of English horticulture." The 

 Cocoa-nut Palm has flowered. At Syon, this, the most valuable of all the 

 products of the vegetable world, has expanded its flowers on a specimen 

 of the pigmy breed from the neighbourhood of Galle, in Ceylon. " The 

 trunk of the Palm at Syon is not, we should say, above two feet high, and 

 it is from among the magnificent leaves that form a bright green plume of 

 unrivalled staleliness that the yellow blossoms have sprouted out. It must 

 be highly gratifying to the noble duke in whose celebrated garden this suc- 

 cess has been achieved, to find that he alone in Europe is the possessor of 

 so rare a specimen." There are few trees more useful than this. The 

 fruit supplies the Orientals where it grows with both food and drink ; the 

 leaves form an excellent thatch for their humble cottages ; and the fibres 

 both of the leaves and fruit are made into soft and elastic mattresses, mats, 

 carpets, etc. The coarse fibres make good brooms. The stem, which is 

 about the thickness of the ankle, furnishes fuel. 



International Exhibition. 



New Zealand Wood for the Exhibition of 1862. — The Maire 

 is another tree the wood of which is of remarkable toughness. It grows 

 pretty extensively in the Northern island. Prom its extreme hardness, the 

 natives have always used it for making their delving implements. The 

 Maire takes a polish like burnished iron. It is very easily worked in a 

 semi-green state, but when thoroughly dried it is as difficult to work as 



