■■■■ 



■■ 



■ 



/ in 



i n r. li A K Ll l«. A E K S' U H KONI CLE. 



—The premises of 

 Manchester, were 



the 15th inst., or 

 whole of his valu- 



Hoare's Columnar Vine Border, you have not expressed 



any opinion on the effect 12 or 14 degrees of frost, 



which is of common occurrence, would have on the roots 



exposed on every side to its chilling effect?. I should 



imagine this would at once prove a settler. — John 

 Spencer. 



Extensive Roller y of Auriculas.- 

 Mr. Middletoo, of Prestwich, near 

 entered on the evening of Tuesday, 

 early the following morning, and the 

 able collection of blooming plants were stolen therefrom. 

 From inquiries which were subsequently made, suspi- 

 cion fell upon a person of the name of John Scholes, 

 who is a dealer in Auriculas, Carnations, Pinks, Poly- 

 anthuses, &c, and who resides at a place called Tongue- 

 lane, near Middleton. Under these circumstances, a 

 party was deputed to call upon him for the purpose of 

 inspecting his plants ; and, from what he observed, no 

 doubt was entertained that the guilty party had been dis- 

 covered. Information was forthwith given to the po- 

 lice, and, accompanied by Mr. Middleton, Scholes's 

 garden was searched, and a number of plants were iden- 

 tified. He was immediately taken into custody, and on 

 Friday, the 18th inst., was charged before the magis- 

 trates with the robbery. He expressed his surprise and 

 indignation at the charge, and he alleged that many of 

 the phnts had been in his possession five or six years. 

 The prisoner was remanded, and afterwards liberated on 

 bail. On the same day his dwelling-house was searched, 

 when the whole of the plants (with the exception of 

 about a score, amongst which was a Freedom, a Ne plus 

 Ultra, and a Colonel, remarkable in consequence of a 

 leaf being 5*f across, which could not be removed with- 

 out injury) were discovered unuCr fclS b*3; nmI thr ' 



missing inamsncic nuiuuicu oy urni 10 nave ueen oCnt 

 away the Wednesday previous. The prisoner was again 

 brought before the magistrates on the 22d, when, being 

 asked what he had to say, replied, " I am Guilty." 

 The magistrates consulted, and the prisoner was ordered 

 to pay 3/. lis. Cut., with a penalty of 5/., and in default 

 thereof to be imprisoned 3 months. The accuracy of 

 the above account is vouched for by Mr. Watkinson, 

 Seedsman, Manchester; Mr. Lodge, Nurseryman, 



Broughton ; Mr. Slater, Florist, Cheetham-hill 



I think it right to call your attention to this case for these 

 reasons : — First, that the delinquent should be exposed 

 to the fullest extent ; and secondly, that the attention of 

 the public should be drawn to the state of the law with 

 reference to such cases. If a poor person, to satisfy the 

 cravings of nature, steal so much as a piece of bread, he 

 is at once seized, and presently imprisoned for a con- 

 siderable period ; but should a party, as in the present 

 case, steal property to a considerable amount, in plants, 

 the law says such a party is not guilty of a felony, and is 

 only liable to pay the value of the stolen plants, with a 

 penalty not exceeding 20/., or, in default, to be im- 

 prisoned for a period not exceeding six months. It 

 certainly appears to me extraordinary that such a state 

 Of things should be permitted to exist ; and I, with 

 other floncultural friends in this town and neighbour- 

 hood, deem it our duty to toy these facts before you, 

 trusting that they will elicit such remarks as the justice 

 of the case reqmrep.—Manamiencis. 



Miscellaneous.— Nemo asks, in last week's Chronicle, 

 how to rid his aviary of mice. The only plan I find to 

 answer here is, when I find them troublesome, to take 

 up all the food of a night, and set traps ; those set with 

 thread, and baited with toasted cheese, or such as cana- 

 ries are fed with, are the most suitable. The trap con- 

 sists of holes, with a spring wire, which catches the 

 mouse by the neck when he has gnawed t he thread 

 through. A cat would declare war against the birds.— 



f/ ,T Mt ' Calceolarias. —I have observed that 



my friends mention the difficulty of striking Calceo- 

 laria viscosissima. If they would put in their cuttings 

 now, m cutting-pots of sand, plunged in a very gentle 

 bottom-heat, kept well shaded in sunny weather, and 

 close during the day, but give a little air every 

 morning to dry off damp, they would find there is no 

 plant more easily propagated. Indeed, I never put in 

 cuttings of Calceolarias of any kind till October, and 

 never fail.— P. Frost. 



.? iM J Melon.seed.-ln your Paper of the 12th October we 



iVnrfh 9 « C ? dan °i C *? oin Mr " Flcrain &- j » ^ich we under! 

 £ n hl ™ t0 aSS£ ^ that he has never P^ted with any of his 

 men? nf^n?. n " >Ced t0 narser y men - °° reference to advertise- 

 Si "S y ,° U may P erce J ve that we have offered seed of the 

 Hoosainee Melon vvarranted true from the fruits exhibited by 



« ,; 1* > L ,ette . r ml1 a PP ear to our fiends to give Ihe lie to 

 S?v ,hnr« . 2 W U u to v c ° nt F adlct him ' and to remin d him that 



which Vp ??P.7 hase ^ an / 8eea he misht have no use for ' *° 



m ieht h a vpf' ed ' l , hat he , Would not sell any, but that we 

 had in n„\ m ex ? han S e for Some valuable plants which we 

 shortlv Xr P « Se - S, °H n Vv We imraet *iately sent the plants, and 



n^R%^Tn e d %t SCedS WhlCh WC aftCrWardS * W 



zoologists, nor zoologists botanists—and the mixing up 

 zoology and botany in one Section has at last ended in 

 the almost entire exclusion of botany from the considera- 

 tion of the Association. A day was, however, set aside 

 for the discussion of Botanical Papers alone, and we have 

 been enabled to obtain ample abstracts of the most inte- 

 resting of them. The following Papers were read by the 

 Secretary, Dr. Laxkester, from Chevalier Schom- 



BURGK : — 



virtues. Dr. Maclagan published a h 



1 ^^^^^^^V^H^^H 



[Oct. 2G r 



of the Bibirine, a vegetable alkaline bodv 



from this tree, in the '• Tr - 



Edinburgh," vol. xv. part 



wic aiKaime body which h* 'Jf Cjl »ot 

 Tr a o 3acti(ms of "the Roy^l^ 



interested in such mahe™^^ ^ 



true that the Republic of Peru ha laufrestric i ' ^"^ 

 E£*!X °'I ? ££«?*?* this treedeTe ^ev r ^If- 



Societies. 



ME F E o?T G RP°L^L B ^ lTISH ASSOCIATION 

 FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



Tins Meeting, which was held this year at York, was 

 more than usually numerous, and its proceedings, in 

 many of the Sections, were of a highly interesting cha- 

 racter. For all that was generally important, we refer 

 to other parts of our columns, and confine ourselves here 

 to the botanical department. However much it may be 

 lamented, the interest and value of the Botanical Papers 

 in the Association have been gradually falling off, and 

 there were never, perhaps, fewer botanists, and a smaller 

 number of Botanical Papers, than on the present occasion. 



"Alexandra Imperatricis.—This tree, one of the most gorgeous 

 aDd beautiful of the extensive tribe of Papilionacere, was disco- 

 vered by the author of this Paper at the foot of the northern 

 ridge of sandstone mountains in the fluvial basin of the river 

 Cuyuni, in Guiana, and reaches a height of from 100 to 12p feet. 

 The flowers appear directly from the woody branches In large 

 clusters ; the racemes, pedicels, and calyxes, are of a rich crim- 

 son, the petals bright orange, striped with crimson; the vex- 

 ilium of a deep purple, and ascending; the pod, which is from 

 1 8 to 20 inches long, is of a velvety brown outside, and contains 

 several seeds of a chestnut colour. 



" A New Birbacenia.— Few regions la Guiana offer to the bo- 

 tanist sucharich harvest as thetabie-land from which Mount Ro- 

 raima rises to a height of more than 7000 feet above the sea, the 

 last 1500 feet presenting perpendicular walls, formed of sand- 

 stone. In these regions, under the 5th parallel of north lati- 

 tude, and about 4000 feet above the level of the sea, I discovered 

 the plant which is the subject of this Paper, and which surpasses 

 any other of that interesting group— the Vellozise— hitherto 

 described, in size and beauty. It reaches frequently a height 

 of 10 to 12 feet, branching out in a dichotomous manner, and 

 bears a number of flowers which in their appearance are lilia- 

 ceous, and 5 to 6 inches long; the slender tube, covered with 

 callosities, has a purplish tint ; the perigon is inside snow white ; 

 on the outside, however, a delicate purplish tint spreads from 

 the middle towards the margin. The fragrance of these flowers 

 is delightful, and the plants which produce them extend iu 

 groups for several hundred yards. 



" Barb ace nia Alexandrines.— This plant, with precisely the 

 habit of some of the frutescent Vellozire, has the perigonial 

 leaves united into a tube above the ovary, as in Bar- 

 bacenia. It differs from the SPCCICG of that vana* ^;ta C rto de- 

 scribed, in the number of stamens, w&u are lb, i\\ fertile; whilst, 

 in theBrazilian Barbacenia: the two lateral stamensof each bunch 

 are sterile, and usually described as branches of the filament. 

 These differences in the number of stamens are not, however, 

 admitted to be generic in the closely- allied genus Vellosia, and 

 are therefore insufficient to distinguish generically a solitary 

 species of Barbacenia, and should be considered, therefore, 

 merely a good sectional character. I have dedicated this new 

 species to the Empress of Russia, the sister of my Sovereign. 



"Calycophyllum Stanleyanum.— How splendid our Rose bushes 

 under the temperate zone I That favourite plant, alike cultivated 

 by the rich and the poor, how th ey ornament the garden and adorn 

 the hedges surrounding our fields, when In full blossom ! Let, 

 then, imagination convey you to the great garden of Nature in 

 Guiana, clothed in tropical exuberance ; and among those pro- 

 ductions of a congenial sun and fertile soil, imagine trees from 

 40 to 50 feet high, presenting a mass of leaves of the colour of 

 our favourite flower, from a deep pink to the lightest rose, and 

 imagination may assist to give a picture of the Calycophyllum 

 Stanleyanum. There are several genera of the natural family 

 of Rubiacese, as Calycophyllum, Musssenda, Pinckneya, &c, 

 where one of the teeth of the calyx expands in a petioled 

 coloured leaf of a membranaceous texture. In the tree under 

 description, this is the casein such a remarkable way that these 

 bract-like organs of different shades of rose-colour are so nume- 

 rous as to cover entirely the green leaves, and give the whole 

 landscape a peculiar aspect, which appears couleur de rose. 

 It is worthy of remark that the bract-like leaf of the calyx 

 only forms itself after the flower has dropped off, and grows 

 with astonishing rapidity. I discovered this beautiful tree 

 on the banks of the rivers Rupununi and Takutu, in the 

 ad parallel of north latitude; and I have dedicated it to Lord 

 Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies. 



"The Snake Nut.—\n a Paper communicated to the Linneean 



Society, and read the 6th June, 1 83/, and since printed 



in the "Annals of Natural History," vol. v. p. 202, 1 attracted the 



attention of Naturalists to a curious fruit, a Drupa, the kernel 



of which, when opened, and the membrane which covered it 



being removed, displayed the striking resemblance of a snake 



coiled up. I was not able to procure the blossoms of the tree 



which produces this strange fruit in such an advanced state 



as to permit me to describe it with accuracy, and considered it 



at that time as belonging to the order Terebinthacere. Shortly 



before my departure from Guiana, some perfect flowers were 



sent to me, which rendered it evident that the tree belonged to 



the natural order of Sapindaceae; and with the assistance of 



Mr. Bentham, I have described this curious tree as Ophio- 



caryon paradoxum. The specific name relates more to the 



remarkable resemblance of the embryo to a snake, than to its 



deviation from the general structure of the tribe, which, in the 



section Dodonasaccse, presents us already with a spiral and 



twisted embryo. 



"Lightia Lemniscata.— Byttneriaceaj are very abundant in 

 Guiana, and during our late expeditions in the interior, we met 



whole forests of one representative of that family, which no doubt 

 belongs to the most useful and interesting; namely, the 

 Cocoa or Chocolate-tree. Among the Byttneriaceaj which have 

 been added as new discoveries to the list of genera and species 

 of that family aurmg my exploring tours In Guiana, is a plant of 

 high interest, which I have named, after the Governor of 



tth.?T' ?T y L I sht ' Es(1 - " "Slitia." His Excellency 

 took the liveliest interest in our exploring expeditions, and it is 



but a poor token of the gratitude I feel for his interest, if I name 

 oneofthenew genera, discovered during- that period, after him. 

 rhe specific name I have derived from lemniscus, a coloured 

 ribbon hanging down on garlands or crowns, to which the 



olrlf 1 " °L fl r erS S'l 1 *" rib , b ™* like appendages may be com- 

 III V As the regulations of the British Association do not 

 permit a full description of this interesting plant, I shall merely 

 S2r Pecul iarities which this new genus possessed 

 It is true that the essential character of the order Byttneriacerc 



Kp ZZ lbQd by LlnU, , ey ' and Endlicher, mentions already, tha 

 otL P r ,nl a n' V * ,U T ly kn o ,hene « at the apex. However, no 

 P 5™», k £2E«! 8 k , n ° Wn 'u aS faf aS l ara ac( iuainted with it, in 

 ™SAr I jy dom .» wbere the clon &ation of all the petals is so 

 frnmVh^ like ribbons 



?ei?h V, ^ er ,?« fl0Wers - The tree ' about 20 to 24 feet i» 

 M^ThPnS? iG ap P earance of a Cecropia, and possesses, 



,Hn^? s r a a, - d son l e 0ther S enera ' the Peculiarity of pro- 



f J Sfen^oi iSEE" Tk ediatC l y fr ,° m the stem ' beIow de axis of 

 f!i e ";^i ea J!!: x _ hav e only found three specimens of this 



the 



the 



is of equal iau. 



ant 



tion-the more since it is to belbnSrin"^— - ** atten " 



the coast region of Guiana. The second ti 



rest and, like the former, already de*crib 



Hartsinck. The fruit was considered by 



as one of the most efficacious remedies in diarrhea -*V m 



tery, colic, and spasmodic pains. It has ion- been t^ 



under the name of the Accawai Nutmeg in the colony an ° W0 



tensively used as a family remedy in the ahovVdi«.« ? ex * 



is only now that the author has succeeded ft prolttriS ^ 



mens of flowers and seeds, which pronounce the t^LC?" 



new species of Acrodiclidium, to which heh&lr\*^*i? e * 



cific name Camara, by which it is known to the ^ * 8P€ " 



wnere it grows. It appears to be restricTed to the sandftnT 



nTrth n !Xdt^ 0raima ' bCtWeen thC 5th and ^ iSSldTS 



On the Papers being finished, Professor Balfour of 

 Glasgow, stated that the wood of the Greenheart n 

 used for building vessels on the Clyde. He had heard 

 of the chemical preparation bibirine, obtained by Dr D 

 Maclagan, but feared it was not so eligible a preparation 

 as quinine. - Professor Filley, recounted the steps 

 of the cuemical process by which Dr. Maclagan obtained 

 bibirine, as well as another alkaloid, from the wood and 

 bark of the Greenheart. Dr. Maclagan had, however 

 since ascertained that there was but one alkaloid, although 

 he had originally described two, the one being raerelv°a 

 form of the other. The bibirine was not in combination 

 with an organic acid ; it had an atomic composition, 

 very closely allied to quinine. Dr. Lanke«* S r oointed 

 out the necessity of the alkaloids f or animaVexirtencT 

 Large quantities of thein C and caffeine were dai , y con _ 



sumeu D£ man r and these alkaloids very closely re- 

 sembled quinine and this new salt bibirine, in their 

 composition. 



Mr. Babington exhibited to the Section specimens- 

 of three plants, which had been added to the list of 

 British Plants during the summer of 1844. 



I. Alsine stricta, discovered on Widdy-bank Fell, in Teesdale 

 Durham, by Mr. James Backhouse, of York, and a small party 

 of botanists. It occurred in small quantity, but from the nature 

 or the locality, and the plant inhabiting the northern parts of 

 Europe, it must be considered as an aboriginal native of 

 England. 



2, . Carduus setosus, growing near the shore of the Frith of Forth, 

 in the neighbourhood of Culross. As it is a native of the coun- 

 tries to the north-west of the Black Sea, there is every reason to 

 believe that it has been introduced from that region to Scotland 

 by accident. It has now taken firm hold in that place, where it 

 was detected by Dr. Dewar, of Dunfermline. 



3. Galium Vaillantii.— This plant has often, and, perhaps, 

 justly, been considered as a variety of the common G. Apa. 

 vine. It has occurred to Mr. G. S. Gibson, of Saffron Walden, 

 Essex, in cultivated fields near to that town. 



The cause of this is very obvious— botanist are not t ln?' and the author has given to it the specific distinc- 



3 u wtAuia.s are not i Hon, Rodisc?, after the European discoverer of its antifebrile 



at the foot of the sandstone mountain of Roraima^ inth^valleT 

 of the basin of the river Cuyuni. ; 



« 2Sw New Ware* -This Paper makes us acquainted 

 with two interesting trees, of which, hitherto, only the 

 trivial jnme has been known. The first is a tree which has 

 furnished some of the most valuable timber which has been 

 imported into England under the name of Greenheart. Dr. 

 Rod.a discovered that the bark and the fruit of this tree con- 

 tained antifebrile virtues, and though the tree has been de- 

 scribed already by Bancroft, in his "Natural History of GuianV' 

 m 1700, it is only now that its botanical character ha3 been 

 ascertained. It proves to be an abnormal species of the genus 

 Nectandra, and the author has given to it the specific distinc- 



After the reading of Mr. Babington's notice, Mr. O. 

 A. Moore read a report on the Flora of Yorkshire, 

 written at the request of the Council of the Yorkshire 

 Philosophical Society, and the drawing up of which was 

 intrusted to himself and Mr. Baines, the well-knowa 



author of the " Flora of Yorkshire.' 7 



He commenced by expressing his regret that owing to the 

 shortness of the time allowed for its completion, it might appear 

 not quite so perfect, in some respects, as it otherwise might 

 have been, especially as regards species peculiar to the sea- 

 coasts. All plants, too, were excluded from the list not strictly 

 found on the Yorkshire side of the Tees in Teesdale. In this 

 list were included 1117 species, and 158 varieties (many of which 

 latter are considered species by some botanists), exclusive of a 

 few whose claims to be regarded as Yorkshire plants rest on in- 

 sufficient grounds. The list might be regarded as an appendix 

 to the work of Mr. Baines, which appeared four years previously, 

 and which contains an accurate and extensive list of habitats- 

 for all the principal flowering plants and Ferns of Yorkshire, a» 

 well as the Mosses and Characeae. In the present report the 

 subsequent labours of botanists had been noticed, and about 87 

 species and 81 varieties were mentioned, which had not pre- 

 viously appeared in any general list. Additional localities were 

 given for some of the rarer species, when only two or three had 

 been previously recorded ; and those botanists were mentioned 

 through whose assistance much valuable information on the 

 flowering plants and Ferns of Yorkshire was obtained, to which 

 two families the list was confined. They were distributed into 

 the following classes .—Exogens: species 806, varieties 102; 

 Endogens: species 262, varieties 35; Acrogens: species 49, 

 varieties 21. To this was appended an analysis of the species 

 and varieties in natural orders. The list, which was of consi- 

 derable length, was then gone through in a cursory manner, 

 the time only permitting the leading points to be alluded to, and 

 remarks were made on such species as were either very rare or 

 had some peculiarity in their habit or mode of growth. The 

 following were a few of the principal additions mentioned in the 

 list— Anemone apennina, Barbarea stricta; this species was 

 shown to be common in many parts of the county, especially 

 on the banks of the Don, at Doncaster, at York, Smeaton, &c. 

 Its claims to be regarded a distinct species were also pointed 

 out. Camelina dentata, Alyssumcalycinum, Lepidium Smithii, 

 Dianthus plumarius, Dianthus deltoides var. glaucus, Silene 

 anglica, Hypericum perforatum ,3, Hypericum maculatum, \ icia 

 Orobus, Alchemilla alpina, Rosa involuta, Epilobium virgatum, 

 Callitriche platycarpa, C. pedunculate /3, Sedumrupestre Saxi- 

 fraga geum, Asperula arvensis, Valerianella auricula, Sohdago 

 virgaurea (3. Artemisia campestris, Crepis succissefolia, Hiera- 

 cium diaphanr.m <*, H. Lapcyrousii, H. prenanthoides, H. r.gi- 

 dum cc,(3, H. boreale, Cuscuta trifolii, Orobanche rubra. 

 This plant was found at Leyburn Shaw, by Mr. Pulleine, and is 

 another instance of the species not being confined to the basalt. 

 Scrophularia Ehrharti, Melampyrum pratense 0, Veronica tn- 

 phyllos, V. Buxbaumii, Mimulus lutcus, Mentha aquaMca p 

 citrata, M. pulegium, Stachys palustris var. j3 ambigua, Pri- 

 mula farinosa var. pumila. A curious dwarf variety of this plane,, 

 from Hauxwell Moor, was exhibited. Chenopodium olidum, c. 

 ficifolium, C. murale, Atriplex littoralis, A. erecta, A. deltoidea,. 

 Halimus portulacoides, Rumex palustris, R. pratensis, R.aqua- 

 ticus • this plant was shown to be the common roadside Dock, 

 at Hawes Wensleydale, and grew on dry stone quarries, KC. 

 Polygonum mite, Salix rugosa, tenuifolia, Weigeliana, Aceraa- 

 anthropophora, Habenaria chlorantha, Juucus maritimus r 

 carnosus, obtusifolius, Potamogeton oblongus, plantagineus, 

 Carex paradoxa, rigida, Caiamagrostis pyramidalis, Brom 

 patulus, commutatus, Cynosurus echinatus, Arena pratensis/* 

 alpina, Lolium multiflorum, Equisetum Drummondu, Isoetes 

 lacustris, Onoclea sensibilis. 



Mr. C. C. Babington commended the zeal, industry, 

 and enterprise of Mr. Baines, in bringing out the 

 " Flora of Yorkshire." In most cases such works failed 

 to pay the author, and he was sorry to find that the^ 



