Linncean i^iociety. 4/ 



Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, where he believes si- 

 milar larvae were voided from the intestines of a man. 



Specimens of the Lastrea rigida collected at Settle, Yorkshire, 

 were presented by Mr. Daniel Cooper. A.L.S. 



Read " Observations on the Ergot." By Francis Bauer, Esq., 

 F.R.S., and L.S. 



The author, as is well known, has made the ergot a subject of 

 particular study, and about thirty years ago he undertook, at the 

 suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, a series of careful microscopical ob- 

 servations, with a view to determine the nature and cause of that 

 singular production, and the beautiful drawings prepared by him at 

 that time, illustrative of the ergot in various stages of its develop- 

 ment, form part of the Banksian collections now deposited in the 

 British Museum. Mr. Bauer's investigation led him to determine 

 the ergot to be a morbid condition of the seed, but he was unsuc- 

 cessful in ascertaining the cause of the disease, which Messrs. Smith 

 and Quekett have satisfactorily shown to be occasioned by a mi- 

 nute filamentous fungus, a fact already recorded at p. 1 & 4. After a 

 long lapse of years Mr. Bauer was induced to resume the subject, 

 and the result has been an additional drawing from his masterly 

 pencil, disjilaying the minute fungus already noticed in different 

 stages of its growth. The fungus has been named by Mr. Quekett 

 Ergoteetia abortifaciens. 



February 4. — Mr. Forster, V.P., in the Chair. 

 Read, " On the Heliamphora nutans, a new Pitcher Plant from 

 British Guiana." By George Bentham, Esq., F.L.S. 



The interesting subject of this communication was discovered by 

 Mr. Schoraburgk growing in a marshy savannah on the mountain of 

 Roraima, on the borders of British Guiana, at an elevation of about 

 6000 feet above the level of the sea. It belongs to the Sarraceniacea:, 

 and constitutes a very distinct genus of that small but remarkable 

 family of plants, hitherto exclusively confined to the United States. 

 The genus is principally distinguished from Sarracenia by the entire 

 absence of petals, small apterous stigma, and trilocular ovarium. 

 The following are the characters of this new genus : 



HELIAMPHORA. 

 Perigonii foliola 4, 5, (vel 6 ?) hypogyna, libera, sestivatione valde Imbri- 

 cata, subpetaloidea. Stamina numero iiidefinita, hypogyna. Antherce 

 oblongo-lineares, versatiles, biloculares, loculis oppositis longitudinaliter 

 dehiscentibus. Ovarium triloculare, ovulis numerosis anatropis pluri- 

 serialiter placentae axili afRxis. Stylus simplex, apice truncatus. Stigma 

 parvum, obscure trilobum, minute ciliatum. " Capsula triloculari?, 

 trivalvis, polyspevma" {Schovih.). Semina obovata, compressa, testa 



