TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 823 
spruce, just below a winter bud or into the bud itself, and thus anchored passes 
into a hibernating condition. The tip of the proboscis lies in the neighbourhood 
of the cambium. In the spring the insect awakens, commences to suck, undergoes 
three eedyses, and then lays a great number of eggs. It probably injects an 
irritant into the bud, which is forced into precocious growth, and by the time 
the bud-scales are thrown off the rudimentary shoot has become enormously 
swollen and stunted. The swelling proceeds outwards through the cortex into 
the bases of the young needles, and takes place in such a manner that the spaces 
in the axils of the needles become converted into chambers. Into the chambers 
the young larve make their way, and there remain until the gall is ripe, when the 
chambers open and the inhabitants emerge as winged insects, which carry the 
infection to other trees. 
In the early stages the chlorophyll, tannin, resin, resin canals, and secretory 
cells of every description disappear within the gall area, which consists entirely 
of enormously swollen parenchymatous cells. After the shoot emerges from the 
bud-seales and becomes exposed to light these all reappear, though in abnormal 
situations. 
Starch is found in great abundance round the periphery of the gall area, and 
it is suggested that it may be the ultimate product of the disintegration of the 
tannin. 
The nuclei of the galled cells also become enlarged, and the chromatin network 
becomes aggregated into numerous wart-like nucleoli. The mitotic figures are of 
Ma usual somatic type, and no indication of heterotypical mitoses has yet been 
ound. 
The later stages of the gall are still under examination. 
The complicated life-cycle of the insect and the connection between it and the 
well-known larch-blight will be shown by means of a table thrown on to the 
screen. 
The pests may he got rid of by washing hoth spruces and larches with a 
paraffin wash during the winter. 
14. The History and Distribution of Catesby’s Pitcher Plant (Sarracen 
Catesbei). Py Professor Joun M. MACFARLANE. 
15. Observations on Two Species of Alpine Rose and their supposed 
Hybrids. By Professor Joun M. MACFARLANE. 
16. Exhibition of a Bigenerie Hybrid between Gymnadenia and 
Nigritella. By Professor Jonn M. MAcrARLANR. 
17. The Destruction of Wooden Paving Blocks by the Fungus 
Lentinus lepideus, /’r. 2y A. H. Reaiwatp Butier, D.Sc, Ph.D. 
The destruction of a great many paving blocks, made of pine- or fir-wood, in 
the city of Birmingham is being brought about by Lentinus lepideus, a fungus 
belonging to the Agaricini, Considerable repairs to the pavement are thereby 
necessitated. 
Single blocks, or small groups of blocks, at intervals in the streets go 
completely rotten, so that one can break up the wood with the fingers. The 
streets affected become unduly bumpy. In wet weather water collects above 
places where rotten blocks are, 
