234 



SCIEXCE-GOSSIP. 



THE SHE OAK. 

 By Thomas E. Amyot. 



HpHE Parish of Winfarthing, near Diss, in 

 -*• Norfolk, celebrated for its huge and venerable 

 oak which was an acorn some fifteen hundred 

 years agone, is also the home of another so-called 

 oak, though why so called it is difficult to say, 

 for it bears no more resemblance to a member of 

 the genus Quercus than does the Anustatica to the 

 Jericho or any other kind of rose, or a conger- eel 

 to an Alderman's turtle, for which it seems to be 



Magnified Flinty Skeleton of Casuarina. 



frequently mistaken. However, in an unfurnished 

 room of the Old Oak Farm grows this " she oak," 

 alias a "beef- wood," or a " Botany-bay oak," 

 otherwise " ironwood tree," known in science as 

 Casuarina, the seed of which was brought over from 

 Australia by the uncle of the present occupier some 

 thirty or forty years since. It is now as high as 

 the room will allow it to be, and judging from its 

 appearance it has no disposition to grow higher. 

 It is fairly healthy, and hangs its graceful horse- 

 tails over a considerable area of floorage, bearing 



Magnified Flinty Skeleton of Equisetum. 



its fruit in due season. Never having travelled in 

 Australia or the South Seas, and having probably 

 overlooked the plant in greenhouses, owing to the 

 attraction of others of more brilliant colouring, 

 its extraordinary resemblance to the Equisetae of 

 our banks and ditches engaged my attention. 

 This resemblance is said, in the modern botanical 

 books to which I have access, to be merelv super- 



ficial, but one striking character at least is common 

 to both the orders, Casuarinaceae and Equisetaceae, 

 the possession of an exceedingly beautiful flinty 

 skeleton which is easily obtained by boiling in 

 nitric acid. In both the details of structure are 

 perfectly preserved, and in both the stomata are 

 arranged in parallel rows. Their beauty would be 

 enhanced by staining and the polariscope, for simply 

 mounting in balsam renders them too transparent. 

 There are excellent descriptions of the Casuarina 

 by Humboldt, Burnett, Lindley, and many other 

 writers ; but I have not found any reference to 

 the silicious skeleton, though in one recent book 

 its absence in this order seems to be alluded to 

 as a diagnostic mark between it and the horsetails ; 

 and this must be my excuse for troubling you 

 with this paper. A transverse section of the young 

 but exceedingly hard wood shows central pith- 

 cells, medullary rays, some few of which are far 

 coarser than the others, and what Gceppert calls 

 illusory concentric rings, that is rings that certainly 

 do not mark annual growth. Persons of certain 

 taste may be interested to hear, on the authority 

 of Dr. Masters, that the Australian cannibals 

 make forks, wherewith to eat their enemies or 

 troublesome friends, of this very hard wood, and 

 hand them down as precious heirlooms to their 

 children. No other meat is eaten with them. 

 Diss, Norfolk ; October yth, 1895. 



UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 

 BOTANY. 



IN 



By John H. Barbour. 



HpHERE are within the field of botany so many 

 queries which require an explanation, that it 

 is difficult for one to know which to take up and 

 try to solve. Many of them are well-known to all 

 your readers, others are only to those who have 

 made the subject their especial study, but many an 

 amateur botanist, all whom I conclude are among 

 your readers, is eager to do something toward the 

 solution of some of the problems. Man}' of them, 

 however, cannot make up his or her mind what is 

 best to work at, and it is for such that the following 

 hints may be helpful ; although I do not suppose 

 that an}- of those of the second head will think them 

 altogether beneath notice. In themselves they are of 

 vital importance, but for their solution they require 

 only a moderate expenditure of money combined with 

 a large amount of careful watching and observation. 

 If we look, for instance, at the Confervaceae among 

 algae, we do not yet know whether they all have a 

 sexual reproduction. We do know that Ulothrix, 

 Sphceroplea, CEdogonium and some others have, but 

 this does not prove that it is so in every instance, 

 although a possible surmise is that there is; this 

 too is the case in our common Laminaria or tangle- 

 weed. Since tangle-weed is so abundant on our 



