240 GENERAL REVIEW. 



view a case lately recorded by Mr Meehan becomes very sig- 

 nificant. That gentleman relates that he obtained cuttings 

 from Bouvardia.leiantha, a dioecious plant, producing its male 

 and female flowers on different individuals. It is not stated 

 whether the cuttings were taken from a male or female plant ; 

 but it is stated that some of these cuttings produced male, 

 others female, plants, and yet all were taken from a plant of 

 one sex only. So, too, it is well known that certain unisexual 

 trees will in some seasons produce male flowers only, in other 

 seasons female flowers only, and vice versa. But dissociation 

 of mixed characters will not account for all the cases of bud- 

 variation. Very often we have no evidence at all of previous 

 hybridisation or crossing ; or even when such has existed, the 

 form produced is not like that of either of the supposed pro- 

 genitors. Such cases as the Fern-leaved Beech do not seem' 

 explicable by either hypothesis. The Sugar-cane, which rarely 

 if ever flowers, and hence offers no opportunity for hybridisa- 

 tion, nevertheless produces new varieties by means of bud- 

 variation. Potato-tubers, again, vary greatly often on the same 

 plant, but these may be the result of former crossing. A case 

 related by Mr Meehan, in the Sweet Potato {Convolvulus 

 batatas), is, however, not open to this objection. The plant 

 in question, it appears, never flowers in the Northern States of 

 America, and yet it has been known to produce tubers of two 

 distinct varieties the ' Red Bermuda ' and the ' White Bra- 

 zilian ' on the same root." 



Cephaelis. A genus of Brazilian plants represented in our 

 botanic gardens by C. ipecacuanha, a medicinal shrub; and, like 

 Cinchona, to which it is botanically related, it may prove to be 

 a valuable plant, well worth culture in some parts of N. India. 

 Its properties are emetic, and it acts on the skin and bronchial 

 passages. Propagated by cuttings in a high moist temperature, 

 or by girdling the branches and surrounding the cut parts with 

 soil or damp moss. As it is a plant of extremely slow growth, 

 it cannot be increased in quantity by either of these methods ; 

 and Mr M'Nab, of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, very cleverly 

 succeeded in propagating the plant from pieces of its charac- 

 teristic necklace-like or annulated roots, which he took from 

 the established plant in August, and cut them into transverse 

 sections, after which they were placed in a horizontal position 

 in a prepared cutting-pot. Placed on a genial bottom-heat, 

 covered with a bell-glass, and occasionally sprinkled with tepid 

 water, these root-cuttings produced roots and leaf-buds in a 

 few weeks, and the result was a batch of fresh healthy young 

 plants, without any injury to the plant from which the pieces of 



