BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 335 
Note on Pressing Plants in a Linen-Press.—We have seen several presses 
-for preparing specimens for the Herbarium constructed on principles pre- 
cisely similar to those on which a linen or cider-press is constructed. The 
screws however are sometimes iron in the plant-presses. We have never 
seen a linen-press with iron screws. We believe almost any sort of press 
will press plants, viz. a bookbinder’s laying or cutting-press, a sewing-press, 
and—but let it not be uttered in Cheddar nor in Cheshire—a cheese-press. 
Is there any hope of getting up a “ Naturalists’ Field-Club” in East 
Kent? Perhaps the idea only wants to be started? Doubtless the ‘ Phy- 
tologist’ has many readers in the county,—what say they?  H.A.S. 
I know of Viscum album (Misseltoe) on Crategus Oxyacantha (White- 
thorn), about one mile from Bexley, Kent; and in abundance on 7%/ia eu- 
ropea (Lime), not far from Tunbridge, in the same county. 
G. B. WoLLastTon. 
Bulrush (Scirpus lacustris)—In the ‘ Journal of Botany and Kew Mis- 
cellany’ for January, 1856, among other interesting articles there is one 
on the “Uses of Sezrpus lacustris, in South America.” In this country 
(Peru and Bolivia) Mr. Weddell says, “I crossed many of the rivers that 
intersect this tract (the vicinity of the Lake Titicaca) in singular barks, 
composed of two great boats or cylinders made of rushes, bound together, 
and with elevated tapering extremities. This rush is a species of Scirpus, 
nearly allied to our S. dacustris.”” The Editor of the Journal tells us that 
there is good reason to believe that it is identical with our species. Lieu- 
tenant Gibbon, of the United States, in his Exploration of the Valley of 
the Amazon, in speaking of the Lake Titicaca describes the boats used on 
these waters in the following terms :—“ The Indians navigate the lake in 
boalsas, or boats, made of the lake-rush, which forms the material for both 
hull and sails. ‘This rush supplies the place of wood, iron, canvas, etc.” 
This fact is illustrative of a passage in the book of Isaiah, chap. xviii., ver. 
1 and 2, quoted below: “ Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which 
is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even 
in vessels of dudrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers,” 
etc. Vessels of bulrushes appear to us rather mean conveyances for am- 
bassadors. Wood is scarce in the Cordilleras, and no doubt it was equally 
rare in the lands beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. Even m Egypt vessels of 
- reeds were employed on the Nile. Moses’s mother, when she could con- 
ceal her son no longer, “took for him an ark (vessel) of bulrushes, and 
daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein.” The 
word translated bulrushes in our present version of the Holy Scriptures is 
reedes in the Bishops’ translation, and is supposed by learned men to be 
the Cyperus Papyrus (paper-reed). Vessels in which rivers and other 
waters may be navigated are and have been constructed of either reeds or 
rushes. . ScRurator. 
What is the duration of Plantago Coronopus? Smith’s ‘ English Flora’ 
says “annual;” Hooker’s ‘British Flora,’ thesame ; Babington’s ‘ Manual,’ 
“annual ;” Purton’s ‘ Midland Flora,’ “ annual ;’? Hopkirk’s ‘ Flora Glot- 
tiana,’ “perennial; Kittel’s ‘German Flora,’ “perennial.” Which: is 
right ? 
