Botany and Zoology, 281 



I 



III. BOTAXy AJS^D ZOOLOGY. 



1. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linncean Society/, Vol. I, No. 4, 

 concluding the volume. 1857.— The Botanical portion contains thirteen 

 articles, nearly all of them short ones. Mr. Berkeley contributes a note 

 on the Recent Discoveries in relation to the niicrogonidia [or andros- 

 pores] of Fresh-water Algie, viz. those of Pringsheim in Vancheria and 

 (Edogonium^ &c. The main object of tlie communication is to record 

 the fact, — now that the interest! ng nature and function of these bodies 



have been demonstrated,— that Mr. Thwaites had observed and made 

 sketches of thera in CEdogonmm more than ten years ago, and conjec- 

 tured them to be antheridia.* 



Mr. Currey describes a new Peziza^ being the full development of Scle- 

 rofium rosetim, * 



Mr, Bennett describes a new Leguminous genus, Guiboiiriia, tlie Kobo- 

 tree of Sierra Leone, allied to Copaifera, and producing one of the kinds 

 of Afrieal copal largely exported from that country to England ; and Mr. 

 Archer gives some account of this substance. 



Dr. Seemann follow^s with a communication, On the Palm of Timbuc- 

 too, and identifies it, through information supplied by Drs, Earth and 

 Vogel, with the Borassus? ^thiopvm of Von Martins. 



Mr. Berkeley, adverting to the statement that a coarse kind of bread 

 IS said to be made in Siberia and Lapland from the rootstocks of Pieris 

 aqudiua^ the common Brake, and to the well known fact tliat those of a 

 probable variety of the same species, P. escidenta, furnished the New 

 Zcalanders with a large part of their food, undertook to prepare a sort of 

 bread from the rootstocks of the English plant. After digesting the 

 prepared pulp In water for twenty-four liours and washing away the 

 abundant and ill-flavored slimy matter, it w^as kneaded into a cake and 

 haked. "The result was a coarse but palatable food, perfectly free from 

 any disagreeable flavor, much better, — and probably not less nutritious, — 

 than Cassava bread."} 



Mr. Berkeley next describes some Entomogenous Sphoerice, ■pvemhiug 

 that: "No country in the world seems to abound more in Fungi than 

 the United States. I have something approaching to 5000 species in my 

 herbarium from two or three of the Southern States alone ; and it is 

 Quite certain, from the new forms which arc constantly occurring, that 

 the number is far from being exhausted." Those here described are five 

 »ew species of Cordyceps (collected by Mr. Ravenel and Dr. Curtis), all 

 probably growing out of larv« of different insects. They are all figured 



<>n an accompanying plate. 



Mr. Masters describes a monstrosity of Saponaria officinalis, in which 

 the (usually bifid) crown or scale of the petals w\^s transformed, more or 



. * An abstract of the results reached by Pringsheim, and also by Cohn, Ac. Ac. 

 m their recent most interesting contributions to our knowledge of reproduction m 



the lower Cryptoo-amia, demonstrating true sexual reproduction in these simple 



plants,— will be gi'v'en in an ensuing number of tliis Journal. 



. t In the Gardener's Chroyiicle for July ISth, Mr. Bell calls attention to a pn-^nge 

 ^ the EngJish Chromch' for 1377 to 1461, published by the Camden Society, ehow- 

 "ig that in time of famine the people in the north of England were accustomed to 



XXIV, NO- lU — SEPT., 1857. 



36 





