1858.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 567 



Bentham's 'Handbook of the British Flora.' 



The following question is asked by a correspondent : — " Have you yet 

 seen Bentham's Handbook ? . . , But if he is right in his immense re- 

 duction of species to varieties, how the poor little English Flora dwindles !" 

 We have seen it, but that is all. Some readers of the ' Phytologist ' may 

 be better able to appreciate its author's labours in clearing our lists of a 

 multitude of book-species than we are. It comes highly recommended, 

 both by the prestige of its learned author and by the suffrages of men of 

 the very highest botanical reputation. 



BucKVPHEAT {Poh/gomim Fagopyrurn). 



" The flour of Buckwheat is made into thin cakes, called crumpets, in 

 some parts of England, and is supposed to be nutritious — not apt to turn 

 acid upon the stomach. The seed is excellent for horses, either whole or 

 broken, mixed with bran, chaff, or grains. A bushel goes further than 

 two bushels of oats, and mixed with four times as much bran will feed a 

 horse for a week. Four bushels of meal will fatten a hog of sixteen or 

 twenty stone in three weeks ; eight bushels of meal wiU go as far as twelve 

 bushels of barleymeal." This is taken from Miller's Dictionary, and if 

 correct it is important that the agriculturist should know it. 



Are the crumpets of the present day made of this meal? and is the 

 wheat much cultivated in England ? Why is it called ^wc^- wheat ? 



S. B. 



Hypericum perforatum. 



Black dots of Hypericum perforatum and other Hyperica. — These are 

 glands or processes or elevations which become black by the action of 

 the air on their juices. It would be difficult to say what object they 

 subserve in the economy of the plant or plants : it is but a barren sub- 

 ject. What are the uses of hairs, scales, down, and other cuticular ap- 

 pendages ? Only general, and for the most part unsatisfactory answers, 

 can be given to this and similar questions. 



Pyrus Aucuparia. 



In Worcestershire the Moimtain Ash is called, vulgarly, the Witty-tree, 

 and in Derbyshire the common folk give it the name of the Wickey -. have 

 not both these names a close connection with the Westmoreland one of 

 Wiggen ? and what is their common root, if they are so allied ? 



F. B. W. 



Early Painters and Plants. — Asparagus. 



I have an engTaving from a picture by Rubens, which represents Christ 

 and his Disciples at the Last Supper. On the table is a dish which 

 contains Asparagus. I wish to know if this is an anachronism in paint- 

 ing, and if there is any reason to be assigned for the painter's choosing to 

 represent Asparagus as the Supper food. S. B. 



