236 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE. 
[FEBRUARY 23, 1895, 
EDITORIAL NOTICES. 
Advertisements should be sent to the PUBLISHER. 
News.—Correspondents will greatly oblige by sending 
to the Editor early N. NN of local events likely to be 
of interest to our any matters which it is 
13 
Illustrations. tor will thankfully receive and select 
GERS Se — suitable for reproduction in these 
papm, of gardens, or of remarkable plants, — trees, 
$ but he cannot be responsible for loss or injury. 
APPOINTMENTS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK, 
MEETINGS. 
Annual General Meeting of the 
Nonna. FEB, 255 ee. 
= Ss ea. R 
SAL 
ro oy of 8 * — eA 
* w ani essrs. 
TUESDAY, Fru. =| Lewis & Oo., at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms, 
Great Sale of Lilies, Palm Seeds, 
WEDNESDAY, FEB. a} and Tuberoses, at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Rooms. 
oe 2 and othe? a 
& Morri 
THURSDAY, FEB. 28 ———.— 83 Sele of — 
Hot-water Piping, and Effects, 
at the Nurseries, Chadwell Heath. 
Im m por rtant Sale of Orchids, from 
FRIDAY, MARCH if various Weg at Protheroe & 
Morris’ Room 
CORRECTED AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE ENSU- 
ING WEEK, DEDUCED . THE eee 
OF FORTY-THREE YEARS, AT CHISWICK 
Joun Hunter's reputation as an 
Joun HUNTER. animal 8 and as a 
f so great that they 
have overshadowed his claim to be considered 
a botanist. Nevertheless, oe the careful 1 5 5 5 
i comparison of living plants, from the 
humblest to the most highly organised that he 
temporaries the real significance of classification: 
HunTER, moreover, showed the same remarkable 
aptitude for experiment in vegetable a Pio 
that he did in the animal department 
already known, he closely resembled CHARLES 
Darwin. Many of the later naturalist's views 
wW 
by the great surgeon. Few even among botanists 
are aware of what was done by HUNTER, and his 
name is not even mentioned by Sacus in his 
pope of Botany. A cursory . 
of certain certain sections of the unrivalled Museu 
College 
The 
, reprinted 
of Saree are me 
inp di deal with the following subjects: Heat of 
re memoranda, but 
vegetables (Phil. Trans., vol. Ixv., 1775); 
on the growth of plants; formation and dec ecay o 
leaves; effect pr roduced by the partial or total 
removal of the bark; and there are records of 
notes 
f Surgeons, i in the Hunterian Oration 
delivered at the College on the 14th inst. 
We venture to say that Mr. HULKE’s 
brief sketch of Hunter as a vegetable biologist, 
as exemplified in the following quotation, was as 
a revelation to many of the a present. 
The address also passed in revie NTE 
better-known work as an animal i but 
to this we need not here do more than allude :— 
meet to-day to commemorate the 166th 
anniversary of the birth of Jonn Hounrer, that 
remarkable man whose name in this college is as a 
living presence, w 
great success, last century to raise 
lower grade of an —— handi craft, which it then 
rd 3 age to the dignity of a branch of 
science by — g the principles that should guide 
its 1 * combined ſoundation of anatomy, 
ae man pathology. His great achievements 
a surgeon, his life-history, and his personality, 
en accounts for ar imperfect recognition by so 
many of us of how much Joun Honrer also occu- 
pied ‘himeclf i in Docanieal rest areh. 
In one of several physiological papers, after dis- 
cussing the agreements and the differences between 
that which h common or original matter 
and animate matter ow should say 
inorganic 
he resemblances and the differences of the matter 
a e h animals and vegetables are composed. 
les the power of immediately 
converting common (i.e., ini matter into th 
wn kind. From this he ani the eren that 
„in vegetable seems 15 ee a line between 
ommon and animal m 
In his lectures on a ue of Surgery ” he 
reviews the “accord” b 
x 
contrasts the magnitude of the force employed in 
this movement with that exerted in the heart’s 
st 
Havin ng defined irritability as the power of re- 
sponding Me stimuli a internal and external work, 
al tion 
of the leguminous plant the Hedysarum gyrans as 
an example of the phenomenon; and he comments 
t th 
2 d 
hd of organic 
er careful to avoid the 
error of attributing | to t ese superficial resemblanceg 
th 
The circling movements of aia as if seeking 
for a mechanical support, and their twining round 
= when they have come into contact with it, did 
Joun Hunrer’s notice. Neither did he 
poset the remarkable circumstance which charac- 
terises the twining of the stems of certain climbing- 
plants, vi, its constant direction for each plant. He 
cites the Honeysuckle ( Lonicera), the Hop (Humu- 
lus) as climbers, of both of ich he says, “Their 
stems turn to the 
(a on and that of Convolvulus turn to the right.” 
ther instances of plants endowed with consider- 
able powers of movement, such as the Dio 
cited by Mr. Hurkx, and of plants which bend their 
leaflets in response to a COAT 
That plants, like animals, have “ the power within 
themselves of producing or ee heat did not, 
the or rator e ontinued, es cape 
freezing mixtures, and noting the effects of these on 
succulent and on woody plants, and he found that 
the latter better resisted great cold. He also carried 
out a series of Shenae prolonged over a year, 
the inte rature of trees relating 
to that of the external p sphere, He mentions 
that he “read his thermometers at 6 o'clock in 
the i m a . at the same hour in the 
evening,“ he says that he was obliged to 
eee es experiments, because the sa 
froze in the holes bored in the tree trunks for the 
so of his thermometers, He records pea he 
o allow a sufficient interval to 
t oles and inserting the pas 
mometer in order that the "E generated by the 
friction of * gimlet might be dissipated ; so he tells 
us also that he enclosed in a box the part of the 
i dee projecting externally beyond the hole, 
and packed it in wool in order to protect it “ against 
all — external influences of heat or 
TER also made a series of thermal experiments 
on Vivi seeds similar to others he had made on 
eggs. 
osses 
views concerning the in 
duction of the “gr een colour 3 of A on the 
vin natural 
decay of the vegetable tissues, on the m 1 of 
the bud, and on “germination and generation in 
vegetables. I cannot now enlarge on his work in 
relation to these several subjects ; nor isit necessary 
that I should do so, since the evidence adduced is 
reasoner upon any o of the phenomena 
3 under vegetable POED, 
THE variations in the 
Primrose, apart from their beauty, 
ave great interest tothe naturalist. 
That interest was naturally increased first by the 
discovery, and next by the introduction into cul- 
The Chinese 
Primrose, 
ling variations from 
the result of crossing with allied species (08 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, January 26, 1888, p. 115; 
564; and +L pene 
March, 1891, Journal of the Royal Horticultura 
ciety, vol. xiii, p. 99). All the 11 
variations, in size, form, oolour, alik — 
flower and of foliage, are “specific, 
t, 
ing also to learn that, up to the $ 
Messrs. Surrox, who have a stock of er ye 
form, have been unable to cross it wit vit 
other. The plant for the present remains 
them an irreclaimable savage, e coe a 
i 0 
with any out of its tribe. Sa so orros 
tance, and the “blood of the noble sa Pa 
before long be apparent in many 3 new aed 
Messrs. CANNELL, it is said, have been 
