740 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[Nov. 10, 1855. 



which not cue in a thousand would contemphve if they 

 wasaud knew what contained it. It. Maclean. 5 



" Dorchester, Feb. 23d, 1337. 

 •That an apology is due to you from me, who 



» Sir, 



have suffered your note of August 8th last to remain 

 until the preseut time unanswered, is beyond question ; 

 but perhaps that apology may be found in my desire 

 that the explanation you wish regarding the very inte- 

 resting and extraordinary circumstances connected with 

 the Raspberry seeds you have received from me should 

 be given as fully sis possible, and that explanation I 

 therefore deferred until my annual visit to this part 

 should have enabled me to make such enquiries and 

 adduce such corroborative testimony as must place the 

 matter beyond question. I am not surprised that doubts 

 should have been entertained in regard to so extra- 

 ordinary a circumstance as the vegetation of seeds after 

 having been inhumed some 20 centuries or more, and 

 hence I was naturally more desirous to produce satis- 

 factory support of the statement. 



* The account given by the two gentlemen who visited 

 Monkton in June, 1833, is, I dare say, quite correct as 

 far as regards their own labours. Indeed, the researches 

 I made corroborate that account, having found in that 

 part of the barrow previously opened the disturbed 

 skeletons, and the fragments of the urn. But the inte- 

 resting discovery I made was not at all connected with 

 the part of the barrow opened by them. The portion 

 excavated by them may be understood as the division 

 marked (a) in the diagram. The labourers under my 

 direction made a further 

 excavation (6), and in this 

 portion, that had not been 

 before disturbed, we found 

 a male skeleton, which 

 afforded the interesting 

 phenomena in question. 

 Close to the pelvis were 

 plainly observed the faeces 

 that must have been con- 

 tained in the colon, or 

 large bowel, at the time of 

 death, this indicating by 

 the bowels being unexhausted that that death mus 

 have been one ot violence, particularly from the circum- 

 stance of finding a large tusk ot" the wild boar near the 

 sternum, showing it was worn as an ornament. These 

 faeces were a hard compact mass, retaining perfectly 

 the exact form and curvature of the bowels. Of 

 these I carried away considerable portion, with 

 the tusk of the wild boar, and other trifling re- 

 mains discovered, and on closer examination in the 

 evening I ascertained the faeces to be full of small seeds 

 firmly imbedded in a hardened mass of digested matters. 

 This agglutinated mass was brittle and mouldy, and the 

 seeds might be extricated by friction and repeated 

 washings. The seeds with which you were furnished 

 were some of those so extricated. You also had a 

 fragment of the faeces as discovered. Mr. Sydenham, 

 of the Dorset County Chronicle, had a portion of the 

 faeces from me the following day. He has extracted a 

 few of the seeds, and has preserved the remainder in 

 the form in which it was discovered. One of the labourers 

 (Gould) also took a portion, and bears testimony 

 as to the contents. That you should have been 

 informed that no seeds were found is natural, inas- 

 much as at the time of the excavation the only appear- 

 ance of the feces was that of a hard agglutinated mass 

 resembling a piece of mouldy decayed rope, it being the 

 subsequent investigation oniy that brought the seeds to 

 light. Out of a great number to whom I gave portions 

 of the seeds none succeeded in producing plants with the 

 exception of yourself and Mr. Page, of Southampton. 



" 1 annex a certificate of the circumstance, signed by 

 the labourers (in presence of two respectable gentlemen 

 who have also signed their names), whom I have been 

 so fortunate as to find still in the neighbourhood, and 

 preserving a perfect recollection of the circumstances. 



"I trust that this detail will suffice to remove all doubts 



He related the history of the Raspberry seeds to me 

 within a twelvemonth of the time when the seeds began 

 to germinate. « The Raspberry plants," he said, " are 

 now several months old." There is no doubt that he 

 opened a barrow near Maiden Castle and that he found 

 in the usual position the skeleton of the man who was 

 buried there. Nor is there any reasonable grounds to 

 doubt that he found as he stated the lump which proved 

 to be a mass of Raspberry seeds. He said nothing to 

 me of his supposition that they were fossil seeds ; nor 

 of the depth at which they were found. 



" Henry Moule." 



Will anv cunning workman in metals, or carver 

 in wood, or tracer of architectural, domestic, or 

 personal decorations, cast his eye upon this faithful 





really are ideas only are taken from them, perspec- 

 tive is abandoned, and the artist is confined to the 

 arrangement of lines in beautiful patterns. Now it 

 is impossible not to recognise in those designs which 

 are pronounced the most beautiful by persons of 

 refined taste, a very close approach to the forms of 

 natural objects, and most especially to the numerical 

 proportions which parts bear to each other. These 

 numerical proportions are in fact invariable in 

 plants," and it is this indeed which renders con- 

 ventional representations, in which proportion is 

 truly observed, so universally agreeable. The eye 

 is accustomed to them wherever it turns in nature, 

 and recognises, although no doubt unconsciously, 

 the beautiful forms to which it is accustomed, eveu 

 when they are reduced to a mere tracing upon a 

 wall or a lady's dress. On the other hand it is 

 offended when the rules which determine natural 

 forms are neglected. That this is beginning to be 

 very generally felt is, we think, indicated by the 

 admiration with which the race of Ferns is now so 

 largely received. 



In flowers the rule is that all the parts shall be 

 symmetrical ; that is to say there is, as a rule, some 

 fundamental number into which all the parts maybe 

 resolved, or in case of this law being departed from, 

 then the symmetry is restored by a variety of 

 simple, yet most beautiful contrivances, into the 

 nature of which this is not the time to enter. The 

 Fuchsia, in its unchanged state, belongs to the first 



class of structures, its fundamental 



or 



regular 





structures, 

 number being four. Thus its ovary contains four 

 cells, its calyx has four divisions, its petals are 

 four, its stamens eight, its stigma four-lobed. Its- 

 numerical proportions will therefore be 4+4+4+ 

 (4x2) + 4. Upon examining our beautiful monster 

 it will be found that the fundamental number four 

 is still maintained, viz. (4x3) + (4x2)+(4x5) + 

 (4x2), notwithstanding all the disturbance which 

 its structure has undergone. 



Those who believe that truth is the foundation of 

 all beauty, in the material as well as the moral 

 world, will find that the example now before them 

 is only one among myriads of facta to which they 

 may refer in defence of the faith that is in them. 



It may be as well to observe that all the fruit 

 exhibited at the meeting of the Horticultural 

 Society, in Regent Street, on the 20th instant, must 

 be fit for immediate use. Unripe fruit will be 

 regarded as not being present. 



as to this very interesting and singular fact. 



" R. Maclean." 



"We, the undersigned George Gould and James 

 Bishop, labourers of the parish of Winterborne 

 Monkton, near Dorchester, do hereby certify that in 

 October, in the year 1834, we opened a barrow in the 

 above parish, under the superintendence and direction 

 of Mr. Maclean. That the barrow had been partially 

 opened before (say about \). That in the parts so pre- 

 viously opened many human bones were found 

 scattered about, with some remains of an urn and 

 burnt ashes. That on our clearing this away we made a 

 further excavation in a part of the barrow (immediately 

 adjoining) not before touched ; we fouud with other 

 remains a human skeleton, by the side of the lower part 

 of which the contents of the bowels were lying in a 

 firm and compact serpentine form, resembling a piece of 

 mouldy decayed rope. That the greater portion of these 

 contents was taken by Mr, Maclean, and that I, George 

 Gould, took also away a small portion, and afterwards 

 found that it contained a great number of small seeds. 

 In witness of the truth of this statement, we have here- 

 unto set our hands, this 22d day of February, 1837. 

 u Witness to the signing : «< George Gould, 



" John Sydenham, jun,, The mark + of 



" James Savage." "James Bishop." 



" Fordington Vicarage, Aug. 21st, 1851. 

 "Dear Sir, — Mr. Maclean has been dead, I think, two 

 or three years. I knew him, and should consider that 



he was accurate both in observation and in statement. 



portrait of a flower, 'and consider whether it does 

 not suggest forms and patterns now unthought of. 



It is only a Fuchsia, but one of rare beauty and 

 unusual proportions. For the opportunity of repre- 

 senting it we are indebted to Mrs. Gerard Leigh, of 

 Walton Rectory, near Liverpool, from whence we 

 have received a wax model very skilfully executed 

 after the original by Miss Newton. In its natural 

 position it hung downwards, like any other Fuchsia, 

 but we have reversed it, the better to show its form 



and proportions. 



The calyx was a cup with 12 equi-distant 

 furrows, and as many fleshy rays, each the exact 

 counterpart of all the rest ; the petals formed a ring 

 of eight short leaves enfolding each other ; and the 

 stamens stood erect within them, in a ring of 20 stout 

 threads clustering round a graceful curved central 

 column (style), set with eight purple jewels at its 

 very end (the stigma). All this apparatus stood 

 upon a roundish base (ovary) extending downwards 

 into a slender stalk (peduncle). 



The calyx was white, the petals deep rose, the 

 threads of the stamens white, their anther-heads 

 crimson, the column white, the end deep purple, 

 while the base or ovary and its stalk were green. ^ 



The order of the colours was therefore, beginning 

 from below, green, white, dark rose, white, purple, 

 white, deep purple. In every case the darker 

 colours were separated and brought out by an inter- 

 mediate space of white. Had the colours been 

 otherwise contrasted the beauty of arrangement 

 would have been impaired ; as for instance, if the 

 colours had been white, white, rose, rose, white, 

 purple, white. But nature would not have pro- 

 duced such a succession of colours. And this may 

 serve to show that those who wish to know how 

 colours are to be contrasted should attentively 

 observe their succession in nature, which always 

 produces beautiful arrangements, although not of 

 what to us seems equal beauty. 



But this is not all which the flower before us 



should teach. It is needless to say that for the 

 purposes of flat decoration what is termed conven- 

 tional drawing is indispensable ; that is to say, 

 instead of representing natural objects as they j 



New Plants. 



147. Ouvirandra Fenestralis, Point. 



This is oneof the most curious plants that have been 

 lately introduced. In the swamps of Madagascar there 

 grows, beneath water seldom if ever below 70° Fahr. 

 and most frequently 74° or 76°, a herb with delicate 

 dull green leaves pierced with holes like coarse lace, and 

 continually throwing out bubbles of air. The holes are 

 arranged in long lines and are separated by cross bars, 

 which°divide off the whole leaf into a series of paral- 

 lelograms. In fact the leaf is all veins, without the 

 green web which in other cases connects them. The 

 root is said to be eatable ; the flowers to be pink and 

 sweet scented, in forked spikes like those of Aponogcton 

 distachyon, to which it is nearly related. 



We recommend this to the attention of microscopiste, 

 who will find its structure worthy of a very attentive- 

 examination. It is understood that the entire stock of 

 it has been transferred by the Rev. W. ElKs* of Hod- 

 desdon, to whom Europe owes the possession of so great 

 a curiositv, to Messrs. Veitch & Son, of the Exotic 

 Nursery, King's Road, Chelsea. The former gentleman 

 informs us that he found it succeed best in loam and 

 vegetable mould, and sunk 5 or 6 inches under water, 

 so as to allow the leaves, which are sometimes as much 

 as a foot long, plenty of room to float. We should add 

 that the water should not be lower than 75°; that it 

 should be in part changed daily, which Mr. Gordon 

 effects in the Horticultural Garden by pouring enough 

 warm water into the tank to cause it to overflow ; aaa 

 we would further recommend the surface of the earth 

 in which it grows to be paved with fragments of white' 

 marble, so as to enable the wonderful network ot the 



leaves to be distinctly seen. . 



We cannot conceive a more beautiful ornament ot a 

 drawing-room in summer time than a large glass taniw 

 with the Ouvirandra floating in it. 



Since the above was in type we have been favoured 

 by Mr. Ellis with the following interesting statement : 



The natives of Madagascar describe the plant ^ 

 growing on the margin of running streams. The » roo 

 or rhizome is about the size of a man's thumb in thick' 

 ness, and six or nine inches long after branching mj; 

 ferent directions, like the roots of the G.nger "**■*£ 

 but in one continuous growth, not a succession ot mr 

 tinct formations attached at the termination of one an 

 commencement of another. The root ■* ~*P^ d JVj 



ex 



-•omewnat imc* n^a uiwu .=»*.», *■•— -- 

 hibit fringed or fibrous edges when broken 



The 



