General Notices. 263 



their temporary abodes during their inland excursions." Dra- 

 cae^ia terminalis is called ti by the inhabitants of Polynesia (the 

 South Sea Islands), where seven varieties of it have been recog- 

 nised. The specimen figured was furnished by Mr. Lambert. 

 {Bot. Reg., April, mainly : from an account therein quoted from 

 Ellis's work on the Sandwich Islands, which is called an enter- 

 taining one : the rest from Mag. Nat. Hist. iv. 484.) 

 CCLI. Liilidcece. 



IOI80 RHINOPE'TALUM Fi's. {Rhin, rhinos, a nose, petalon, a petal ; the upper sepal has a 



spur-like process at its base.) 6. 1. Sp. 1. — 

 Karelin? Fis. Kar^line's 5 A Pi" i Ja Pa.Pk.Spot Steppes or deserts of the Indersky Sea, 

 [on the southern part of the Ural 1834? O p.l Sw.fl.gar.2.s.283. 



Plant with the habit of Fritillaria pyrenaica, and like it of a 

 glaucous hue. From an orbicular bulb is produced an erect un- 

 divided slender stem, pubescent, and bearing pubescent, lanceo- 

 late, slightly waved leaves, and terminated by a single partly 

 pendulous flower, whose sepals, six, spread stari'ily to the breadth 

 of a shilling, and are of a pale pink colour, marked with rounded 

 deeper-coloured dots : discovered by M. Kareline in the locality 

 we have cited, " and communicated by him to Dr. Fischer of 

 the Imperial Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg, whence bulbs 

 were transmitted to Mr. Anderson of the Chelsea Botanic 

 Garden. From its locality, it will, no doubt, prove perfectly 

 hardy in our climate; but still, being extremely rare, Mr. An- 

 derson has hitherto kept it in a pit along with other more tender 

 bulbous plants." {Brit. Flo'w.-Garden, April.) 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



" On the General Existence of a newly observed and peculiar Property in 

 Plants, and on its Analogy to the Irritability of Animals, By Henry John- 

 sou, M.D." — This is the title of a communication published in The London 

 and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine for March, 1835, and the communica- 

 tion itself is an abstract of a memoir read before the Ashmolean Society of 

 Oxford. Of the abstract itself we present the following abstract : — 



Character of the Phenomena. — On dividing the stem of almost any herbace- 

 ous plant, or a branch of some, perhaps most, shrubby ones, and the footstalks 

 of the leaves, and the peduncles of flowers of plants, the divided portions are 

 found to diverge from the line of the stem's or branch's length, in the mode 

 that the branches of the capital letter Y divaricate from their stem, except 

 that it is in lines curved outwardly, not in straight ones. This diverged state 

 continues until the object divided withers and dies from the loss of its moisture. 



Plants in which Instances of the Phenomena have been observed^ and Particu- 

 lars on two of the Instances. — The plants in which Dr, Johnson has observed 

 instances of the phenomena are those of above seventy genera, with iamium 

 album and Jasminum friiticans, and other plants mentioned below, if not 

 included in, additional to, this number. A portion of the stem of the white- 

 corollaed dead nettle (Lamium album L.) was divided (with a lancet) from 

 the tip of the portion to 1^ inch down it : the segments instantly separated 

 from each other 1 inchj and the distance was gradually increased to \^ inch. 



