106 REPORT— 1869. 



not less important evidences of the unwritten history of the ancient inhabitants of 

 these islands continually being destroyed, and no man the wiser. A cromlech, 

 that a few years since was standing by Merivale Bridge, being part of a series of 

 antiquities in that locality, has this summer been wantonly cleft in two. 



A short time since, near Padstow, a tumulus, in which was found a vessel with 

 bones, was carted away by the farmer of the neighbourhood for the sake of the 

 earth. It was only last summer that an interesting barrow near Tintagel, pecu- 

 liarly and carefully constructed, with a Idstvean in the centre, with a watei-joroof 

 covering over it, containing bones in a good state of preservation, was opened, and 

 the things all lost. A large landed proprietor in the north of this county has told 

 me that he has often opened burial mounds in his neighbourhood, but foimd 

 nothing. Such things as bones, pottery, and stone implements he thought not 

 worth observing ; by nothing he meant no bronze or gold ornaments. 



On the wastes of Dartmoor and the uncultivated lands in Cornwall stand many 

 an unrecorded monument of antiquity ; year by year these are gradually passing 

 away. It appears to me that it is the duty of the ethnologists of this Section 

 earnestly to take steps to record all of those that are in existence, to explore those 

 that have not been examined, and to preserve all from destruction. 



Zoology and Botany. 



On alteration in the Structure of Lychnis diurna, observed in connexion iviih 

 the development of a parasitic fungus. By Lydia E. Becker. 

 Specimens were produced of the common red campion. Lychnis diurna, infested 

 with a parasitic fungus allied to the " smut" in wheat, which fungus developes its 

 fructification in the anthers of the ilower. The campion, in its ordinary healthy 

 state, has flowers bearing stamens only, or pistils only, but about half the plants 

 infested with the parasitic fungus bear flowers with both stamens and pistils in the 

 same flower. The writer had never seen bisexual flowers on healthy plants, and 

 attributed the occurrence of that condition in the specimens produced to the pre- 

 sence of the parasitic fungus. The diseased plants very rarely produced capsules, 

 but occasionally, late in the season, perfect capsules, bearing good seed, are found 

 on them. A few of these flowers had been submitted to Mr. Charles Darwin, and 

 he had suggested that the pollen beino: destroyed at an early period, the pistil 

 was developed in compensation. But though this explanation appeared probable 

 at first sight, further examination of the facts did not seem to sustain it. The 

 writer believed the influence exerted by the pollen to be of a niucli more subtle 

 and surprising character than this, and that instead of causing the development of 

 a pistil in a plant that would have produced stamens only if left to itself, the 

 fungus has the power to cause a plant which in its natural condition would have 

 produced pistils only, to develope stamens for the accommodation of the parasites. 

 She supposed that the spores of the fungus fell on the stigma of the flower, and 

 infested all the seeds produced by that capsule ; that of these, all the seeds which 

 would naturally have produced plants bearing stamens only remain imaffected in 

 structure, but they have their pollen destroyed by it ; that those which would 

 naturally have produced pistils only develope these to a certain extent ; but as the 

 fungus which pervades the tissues of the campion cannot produce spores without 

 anthers to fructify in, it compels the plant it inhabits to develope these for its 

 accommodation, and the eftbrt of so doing exhausts the forces of the plant, and 

 causes the decay of the capsule, if indeed the previous stunting of the style does 

 not prevent fertilization. The parasite comes like a cuckoo, establishes itself in 

 the flower of the campion, and in order to nourish and find accommodation for 

 the spores of the stranger its own oflspring perishes. The production of healthy 

 capsules late in the season may be accounted for by supposing that the vigour of 

 the fungus becomes exhausted, and the pressure being removed the plant resumes 

 its natural functions. The fact that only about half the diseased plants are bi- 

 sexual favours the theory that the latter are female plants, in which the growth of 

 stamens has been induced by the presence of the fungus. 



