420 Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 



Dr. Balfovir read a description of Saba! umhraculiferay a palm 

 which is now in fruit in tlie Botanic Garden. It has a stem of 9 or 

 10 feet in height, still covered by the bases of the fallen leaves, which, 

 in the progress of development, become split in a curious way at the 

 place where they join the stem. The plant has thirty flabelliform 

 fronds, the petioles of which are 1 2 feet in length, and the laminae 7 or 8 

 feet long, with about 100 laciniae or folds. The branching spadices 

 are 6 feet in length ; they are surrounded by numerous partial spathes, 

 and at present exhibit enormous clusters, containing several thousand 

 fruits of the size of large grapes. The fruit has a fleshy mesocarp, 

 and contains only one perfect seed, which has a brown spermoderm, 

 a cartilaginous white uniform perisperm, and a small dorsal embryo. 

 Specimens of the large fruiting spadix, the split petiole, and reticulum 

 of the palm, were exhibited. 



Dr. Balfour also described Phoe7iix si/lvestris, a specimen of which 

 is flowering at present in the Botanic Garden. This palm has pin- 

 nate fronds 7 or 8 feet in length, and a spatha which splits on one 

 side at its upper part, forming a boat-shaped crowning of the spadix. 

 A specimen of a spathe inclosing a branching spadix of male flowers 

 was exhibited. 



Dr. Douglas Maclagan read the following Notice regarding some 

 articles of the Vegetable Materia Medica. 



Prunus Virginiana. — Under this name, borrowed from the United 

 States' Pharmacopoeia, a bark has, during the last year or so, been 

 employed in considerable quantity in this country as a medicine, and 

 has found favour M'ith several medical men. This, it is presumed, 

 is the bark which is officinal in the United States, and which, though 

 bearing in the Pharmacopceia, U.S., the designation oi Prunus Vir- 

 giniana, is not the bark of the plant which was so named by Linnaeus. 

 The Prunus Virginiana of Linnaeus is a small shrub, resembling Ce- 

 rasus Padus, bearing a small dark red globular astringent fruit, which 

 is known in America by the name of Choke Cherry. The Prunus 

 Virginiana of the United States' Pharmacopoeia is the bark of a tree 

 of from 60 to 100 feet high, the Cerasus serotina (DC), the Wild 

 or Black Cherry of the Americans, but which Michaux appears to 

 have confoimded with the shrubby plant, and has also named Cerasus 

 Virginiana. Sir W. Hooker, in the ' Flor. Boreal. Amer.,' adopts 

 Michaux' s name for the large tree, but has obviously transposed the 

 two names, for he quotes Linnaeus' s synonym of Prunus Virginiana 

 for the large tree, and applies the name C. serotina (DC.) to the 



