Cheesejian. — .Vo/r.v oil the Fertilization of Glossostigma. 353 



mentioned, for altliough I feel the greatest interest in procuring, acclima- 

 tizing, cultivating, experimenting with, and testing aU 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 hst and description of grasses and 

 fodder plants at one sitting would only be thesome. 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 acchmatization 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 pm-suits, 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. 



Akt. XL VII. — Notes on the Fertilization of Glossostigma. 



By T. F. Cheeseman, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Aucklaiid Institute, 28i/^ May, 1877.] 



The 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 simj)le enough, are yet peculiar, and may perhaps possess 



t1 



