188 Mr Seward, Notes on the Bunhiry Collection [Mar. 12, 



Monday, March 12, 1894. 



Prof. T. McK. Hughes, President, in the chair. 



Malcolm Laurie, B.A., King's College, was elected a Fellow 

 of the Society. 



The following Communications were made to the Society : 



(1) Dr W. H. R. Rivers showed apparatus devised by Prof. 

 Hering to illustrate (1) colour-blindness of peripheral retina ; 

 (2) mirror-contrast ; (3) influence of strength of illumination and 

 of contrast on quality of colour ; (4) diagnosis of colour-blindness. 



(2) Mr J. C. Willis exhibited a plant of Deherainea smarag- 

 dina in flower. The flowers are interesting on account of their 

 green colour, their large size and disagreeable smell. They are 

 extremely protandrous. In the early stage the extrorse anthers 

 completely surround and hide the stigma ; later on the stamens 

 bend away and come to rest on the corolla, and the flower is now 

 female. From its colour, scent, &c., it is probably adapted to 

 large flies. 



(3) Notes on the Bunhury Collection of Fossil Plants, ivith a 

 list of type specimens in the Cambridge Botanical Museum. 

 By A. C. Seward, M.A., St John's College. 



Between the years 1846 and 1861 several important communi- 

 cations on fossil plants were read before the Geological Society of 

 London by Sir Charles Bunbury. In the case of some of these the 

 value of the contributions seems to have been frequently over- 

 looked by more recent writers. Bunbury 's work bears obvious 

 signs of careful investigation, and a cautious handling of the 

 difiicult problems involved in palasobotanical studies. His illus- 

 trations were faithfully drawn, and, so far as they are in any way 

 open to criticism, it is that in some cases the artist has hardly done 

 justice to the original specimens. 



Through the generosity of Lady Bunbury, by whom the 

 botanical department has previously been considerably enriched, 

 the whole of the Bunbury collection of fossil plants has been 

 presented to the University Botanical Museum. 



The chief interest of the collection lies in the type specimens 

 which it includes, and in the fact that it contains representative 



