PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 127 



the two new cells.— Mr. K. Irwin Lynch brought under notice a 

 mounted example of the pods of Acacia homalophylla t wherein each 

 seed was attached by a very long, bright red funicle, which lies 

 up and down on each side of the seed. This funicle is supposed 

 to be always detached with the seed, and, from its brilliant colour, 

 to serve as an attraction to birds, and so to assist in the dissemi- 

 nation of the plant.— Mr. C. Baron Clarke then gave an oral 

 resume of the Order Commehjnacea, which Order he had lately 

 worked out for the new series of monographs supplementing 

 DeCandolle's Prodromus. He defined the Order in question by 

 the position of the embryo, not surrounded by the albumen, but 

 closely applied to the embryostega, which is always remote from 

 the liolum. An important auxiliary character is that the three 

 segments of the calyx are always imbricated, so that one is 

 entirely outside the two others. The author divided the Order as 

 follows :— Tribe I. Palliem: fruit indehiscent. Tribe II. Com- 

 melynea: capsule loculicidal, fertile stamens 3—2. Tribe III. 

 Tradescantiem ; capsule loculicidal, fertile stamens 6 — 5. The 

 Order contains, according to Mr. Clarke's researches, twenty-six 

 genera and 309 species. He remarked on the character of the two- 

 ranked seeds, on which the genus Dicliospermum had been founded, 

 and which species in various genera exhibit. He also called 

 attention to the remarkable change of colour in the petals of 

 several species (as in Aneilema versicolor, Dalz.), which are yellow 

 when fresh, and of a deep blue shade when dry. 



February 19, 1880.— W. Carruthers, F.K.S., Vice-President, in 

 the chair. — Mr. Edwin Simpson-Baikie was elected a Fellow of 

 the Society. — Mr. James Britten exhibited specimens of the stems 

 of Mijrmecodia echinata and M. glabra, recently sent from Borneo 

 by Mr. H. 0. Forbes, showing the galleries formed by a species of 

 ant allied to, if not identical with, PkeidoU jauana, Mayr. Very 

 young plants of one of the species of Myrmecodia were also 

 exhibited, all of which had been attacked by ants. Beccari, in his 

 description of JSlijnuecodia, which he had studied in its native 

 localities, states that the young plants when not thus attacked 

 soon die ; the presence of the ants apparently being essential to the 

 existence of the species. — Dr. Maxwell T. Masters also brought 

 forward an example of Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes bicalcarata) from 

 Borneo, and he read a note thereon from Mr. Burbidge. Pitchers 

 are perfect traps to creeping insects, by reason of the incurved 

 spinous ridges round the throat of the pitcher. Providing against 

 this difficulty, a certain species of black ant ingeniously perforates 

 the stalk, and so obtains safe inroad and exit to the dead and 

 decaying insects and the water contained in the reservoir. The 

 remarkable Lemuroid Tardus spectrum likewise visits the pitcher 

 plants for the sake of the entrapped insects. These it can easily 

 obtain from the X Rajflesiana ; but not so from X. biealcarata, on 

 p CC ° unt of the sharp spurs by which the lid is protected. — Dr. J. 

 «•• T. Aitchison read a contribution " On the Flora of the Kuram 

 Valley, Afghanistan. " Of 15,000 specimens, or 950 species, col- 

 tected, the material shows a meeting of floras, European, Persian, 



