Currseman,— Notes on the Fertilization of Glossostigma. 853 
mentioned, for although I feel the greatest interest in procuring, acclima- 
tizing, cultivating, experimenting with, and testing all obtainable grasses, 
fodder plants, all kinds of edible plants, fruits of every kind; timber and 
other trees, in fact, every kind of economic and useful plant, yet to others 
who are not so enthusiastic, a very long list and description of grasses and 
fodder plants at one sitting would only be tiresome. Yet to the farmers and 
graziers the subject of adding more to the present grasses and plants those 
that will increase the feeding and fattening powers of their lands, must be 
one of importance, and it would be almost impossible for many of them to 
obtain from various parts of the world the many hundreds of grasses and 
test them for themselves, 
As the Government of this colony have not thought it desirable to have 
an acclimatization ground or botanic garden, in which a proper set of ex- 
periments could be carried out upon the grasses and other economic plants, 
it has been left to private persons to introduce and experiment upon these 
plants. We have to procure them at considerable risk and cost from the 
various nursery and seedsmen in Europe, America, and elsewhere, or obtain 
them from friends engaged in similar pursuits, and had it not been for the 
kindness of Baron von Mueller, Dr. Schomburgh, Mr. Bacchus, Mr. Way, 
Mr. Phillips, and other botanists and experimentalists, it would have been 
almost impossible to have obtained many of the very valuable Australian 
grass seeds and test them here. The same remark applies to European and 
Asiatic plants and seeds, as the nursery and seedsmen cannot or will not 
execute the orders sent, the seeds often not being in their stock for sale. 
The time of the Society will not be therefore, I trust, altogether wasted 
in listening to a description of some of the grasses which have proved them- 
selves to be very useful for what they are recommended, as adding to the 
number of feeding plants for the live stock of this colony will not only be of 
advantage to the farmers and graziers, but to the general prosperity of 
colonists, and all connected with this country who may be concerned in the 
growth and development of the trade in wool, meat, and other produce of 
the sheep and cattle here pastured. 
Art. XLVII.—Notes on the Fertilization of Glossostigma. 
By T. F. Cueeseman, F.L.S. 
[Read before the Auckland Institute, 28th May, 1877.] 
Tue remarkable sensitiveness of the upper part of the style of Glossostigma 
elatinoides does not appear to have been previously noticed. As the facts of 
the case, though simple enough, are yet peculiar, and may perhaps possess 
71 
