September 27, 1864. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



25, 



established them on logs, carefully and very tenderly wrap 

 each leaf in tissue paper, put it but once round, as more 

 than one thickness will have too absorbent a property for 

 the plant Each leaf must then be very tenderly tied to 

 prevent^ its moving. The logs so prepared are then ready 

 for placing in the case, and must be fixed clear of everything 

 inside by means of screws through the end of the case, and 

 entering the log. This will save much knocking about in un- 

 packing, which must be the case if nails are used. The logs 

 will then appear to be slung from one end to the other. A 

 covering must next be constructed of sticks and moss clear 

 of the plants, so as to leave them in a chamber, which will 

 have the appearance of a moss partition. More logs can 

 then be introduced as before, so continuing till your case is 

 full. 



As to the time of removal for Orchids for importing, the 

 most fit period is just as the plants have completed their 

 growth, swelled off their bulb3, become a little consolidated, 

 and have the appearance of a partial ripening. 



By whatever route the cases are forwarded, I hold that 

 nothing surpasses the moss alluded to in my previous paper 

 for packing the whole order of Orchidaeese. Having received 

 consignments from nearly all parts of the globe where 

 Orchids are found, both by sea and overland route, in 

 Wardian and closed cases, those packed according to my 

 directions arrived in much better condition than in any other 

 mode I have witnessed.— A Lovee of Orchids. 



CLOTH OF GOLD AND GOLDEN CHAIN 



GEBANIUMS. 



In reply to your correspondent " J. A.'s " inquiry con- 

 cerning the growth of Cloth of Gold and Golden 'Chain 

 Geraniums, permit me to remark that I have had some 

 plants of Cloth of Gold which, like his, scarcely made a start 

 till within the last month or five weeks, and others which 

 grew freely and looked well all the season. 



The stand-still plants had been taken up from the beds 

 last season, potted, and kept in a moderately warm place 

 through the winter, and -were rather severely pruned in 

 March to obtain cuttings. The plants from these cuttings, 

 as also those struck in the previous autumn, did well ; and 

 I attribute the failure of the old plants to make growth in 

 the early part of the season to the severe cutting-in, and 

 the forcing which they received to produce the growth for 

 those cuttings. 



Golden Chain, which had not been subjected to such severe 

 treatment, made earlier growth; but in this case, too, the 

 autumn-struck plants grew the most freely, although not so 

 freely as the Cloth of Gold. 



. I may remark, too, that I saw last season Golden Chain 

 in a newly-made garden grow with a vigour surpassing 

 anything I ever saw in Cloth of Gold. In this instance the 

 plants were youno-. 



Madame Taucher Geranium has been quite a rosy pink 

 with me this season till quite lately, when the flowers have 

 been nearly a pure white. I have heard SnowbaU and White 

 Tom Thumb simDarly spoken of as respects their being any- 

 thing but white during the hot weather. Have any of 

 your correspondents found them return to their professed 

 shade since the rainy weather set in ? — J. P. M. 



Cloth of Gold has done well here (Upper Clapton, Mid- 

 dlesex) this season, much finer than ever we had Golden 

 Chain. Indeed, it has been so beautiful, that we thought 

 it rivalled the Calceolarias, and wished we had planted 

 more of it instead of them. We find it requires a little 

 extra nursing. Our beds are dug deeply in the autumn, and 

 for the more delicate Geraniums we fork in during March a 

 plentiful supply of leaf soil, or rotted bog earth. This 

 makes them grow much stronger. — W. C. 



Societe Centeale d'Ageicttltuke, d'Hoeticttltube, et 

 d Acclimatation de Nice.— On the occasion of the " Con- 

 cours Regional," which will be held at Nice in April, 1S65, 

 this Society has decided upon the organisation of a Grand 

 Horticultural and ..Industrial Exhibition, which will be in- 



ternational and universal. This project has met with the 

 warmest encouragement from the Government, and will be 

 carried out under the special patronage of their Majesties, 

 the Emperor and Empress. 



EEAlAEKS on some dicecioes plants. 



BT TV. G. SMITH, ESQ. 

 (Read before the Society of Amateur Botanists.) 

 Of late years, various hypotheses have been started, both 

 in this country and on the Continent, which, though more or 

 less borne out by experiment, are on the whole so thoroughly 

 opposed to all former experience, that believers in them have 

 been but few. I allude in particular to spontaneous gene- 

 ration, to the power possessed by Rotifers J and some other 

 animals to survive drying, baking in ovens at a great heat, 

 saturation in powerful acids, &c, and on the application of 

 some restorative to become once more full of life and instinct ; 

 and to the so-called pathenogenesis, or the possibility of 

 certain female plants and animals possessing the power of 

 fertilising their own ovules and ovums without the action of 

 the male principle. 



It is principally on the latter that I propose making a 

 few remarks, and recording some of my own observations. 



In Bryonia dioica, and probably all other dioecious plants, 

 I think we may start with the assumption that when the 

 ovules have been fertilised apart from contact with the 

 pollen of the male, a fertilising influence has been at work 

 in some form or manner. I think an exaggerated import- 

 ance is attached to the functions of various organs. For 

 instance, although anthers generally bear the pollen, under 

 certain conditions other organs will produce pollen. In- 

 stances of this are on record. I have near me a drawing, 

 copied by myself from nature, showing the pistil bearing an 

 anther as well as a stigma (in Crocus vermis) ; on the end 

 of this anther again is another small stigmatic surface. It 

 is also well known that petals occasionally bear anthers, 

 generally situated in their thickest part, as in Nymphaea 

 alba, and in the double forms of the garden Poppy. I have 

 frequently seen the middle of the petal of a double Poppy 

 open and discharge pollen, showing the close affinity of all 

 the organs of the flower. Instead, then, of jumping to the 

 conclusion that a female flower is able to fertilise itself 

 without pollen, it would be well, in all dioecious flowers, to 

 see if the pistil or petals are ever capable of producing or do 

 produce pollen ; or if abortive forms of the stamens occur, 

 that on occasion may produce pollen so as to fertilise the 

 ovules when the flowers are absent. 



In my mind it is an open question as to whether a female 

 flower cannot be fertilised without the direct influence of 

 true pollen. If anything will do this, I am inclined to think 

 it is the nectar found at the base of the petal ; this is pro- 

 bably the nearest ally to the true pollen, and in some 

 Ranuneulacea? I have observed the nectary bearing pollen 

 in the place of nectar. In some female flowers that bear 

 this nectar-like secretion, is it not probable that on certain 

 occasions the nectary may play the part of the anther of the 

 male ? Or may not pollen be at times produced from a 

 petal on its hastening forward to the next stage of flower 

 growth, a stamen ? 



It has been stated rather positively that the female flowers 

 of Bryonia and other plants have no traces of stamens or 

 anthers. M. Naudin of Paris, in his valuable and highly 

 interesting paper " On the Formation of Seeds without 

 Pollen" (" Comptes Rendus," 1856, p. 538, and republished 

 by Dr. Seemann in " Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew 

 Miscellany" for 1857, ix. p. 53), has the following passage : 



" In 1854, I observed in ground close to a wall and pali- 

 sades, belonging to the Museum, a female plant of the 

 common Bryony (Bryonia dioica), quite alone in this ground, 

 and which, from thousands of flowers which it had produced, 

 had set and ripened fruit in very great numbers, but in a 

 proportion incomparably less than that of the flowers. These 

 fruits contained well-formed seeds. In November of the 

 same year I had fifteen of them sown in a hothouse; all 

 came up very well. In 1855 this female Bryony fructified 

 as it did in the preceding year, and in the same proportion 

 as it had done in 1856. I have examined the flowers many 

 times, and have never found in them any traces of anthers. 



