252 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
while in the Barleys which open their flowers barren florets are fre- 
quent, defects of this kind in the Italian are very rare. Neither is it 
the case in this country that Oat flowers do not open in wet. weather. 
tion afterwards. e upper flowers of the Oat panicle are often in 
blossom before the lower are out of the sheath. One floret arrives at 
puberty, so to speak, before another on the same ear, and even in 
hat grains fr 
alight on the stigmas of other flowers is certsinly sobiible and pribalile 
but that cross fertilisation takes place in this way, or takes place at 
all, is perhaps not yet rigorously a aby Unquestionably insects are 
no of the agency of fertilising the cereals, neither is it perhaps 
correct to say that the wind is an agency in the same sense as it is in 
dicscious plants. The essential agency is probably the sudden exten- 
sion of the filaments causing a few grains of pollen to be emptied out 
of the anthers before they are entirely ejected from the flower-cup.— 
‘Notices of Botanical Excursions made in 1872 and 1873 (No. 1).” 
By Prof. Balfour. On the 2nd October a party ascended Ben Lawers ; 
although it 2 ae in the season — aw a number of alpine plants 
during the ase Among these may be mentioned Saxifraga aizoides, 
stellaris, opponitifolia, h ypnoides, nica, Alchemilla alpina, Epilobium 
alpinum and alsinifolium, Thalictrum alpinum, Rubus Chamemorus, 
atrata, and Saxifraga nivalis. In the woods were a number of inte- | 
resting Fungi, Agaricus 8 saccatus, A. eruginosus, Craterellus cornuco- 
‘prides Cantharellus cinerea, C. cibarius, Leotia lubrica, Hydnum 
ee | Seah tae sebui and C. cristata. In April, 1873, Hypnum 
ather 
aller am-a-Craig, the second station for the plant in 
Scotland — On an isieticady Case of Bleeding in a Hornbeam 
Tree.” By Sir John Don Wau Communicated by Prof 
ir W ope, Ba 
Balfour.—‘* — Vegetation at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, 
sie re ot J.M a 
P é 
C. paludosa, confirms Kunth’s view, and not at all Mr. Bentham s 
staminal theory. The following botanical paper was read :—‘‘ An 
Enumeration of the Fungi of Cey lon. Part ii. Containing the 
