Eeb. 1, 1865.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



43 



BOTANY. 



The town of Almora, in Kumaon, India, is said 

 to have been so named from the abundance of Ul- 

 iiioreh, or wild sorrel {Rimiex hasiatus), which grows 

 in its viciniti\ 



Plants Hooting in the Soil. — In tlie notice 

 about plants rooting in the soil (p. 18) they are 

 said to go down abont five or six feet. I \\\qvi of a 

 case where the roots of wheat were traced fourteen 

 feet deep.— ^. /. S. 



Black Hollyhocks.— These flowers are being 

 extensively cultivated, near Nuremberg, for thesake 

 of the colouring matter they contaiu, and which is 

 said to be chipfly exported to England for printing 

 and dyeing fabrics. — La Belgiqiie Horticole. 



Collecting Eoses. — M. Crepin recommends 

 that roses should be collected between the hours of 

 eight aiid eleven in the morning ; after that time the 

 pollen is removed and scattered by bees, &c., and 

 if such be the case the petals will detach during 

 drying, whatever pains may be taken to prevent it. 



How TO Mount Mosses. — To disentangle the 

 stems of Weissia vertlcUlata and other fragile mosses, 

 Mr. Wilson recommends that they should be im- 

 mersed for a time in diluted nitric acid, which dis- 

 solves the earthy matter. By this means, he adds, 

 the brittle species of Cham may also be preserved. 



Cybele Hibehnica, on the plan of the " Cybcle 

 Britanuica," is in course of preparation. At hrst, 

 on.account of the deficiency of information regard- 

 ina: the midland provB'es, it will appear as " Con- 

 tributions towards a Cybele Hibernica," under the 

 editorship of Dr. Moore, of Glasnevin, and Mr. A. 

 G. More. 



EmopHOETJM Aitgustieolixjm. — In April, 1863, 

 I noticed the following forms : — 1, the sexes in dif- 

 ferent plants ; 2, the sexes in different spikes on the 

 same plant ; 3, the sexes in different flowers of the 

 same spite. These forms were in Sunninghill Bog, 

 Berkshire. I could not find any hermaphrodite 

 flowers there. — G. II. Saioijer, in Gardener's 

 Chronicle. 



• 



Which is Bight?— Professor Parlatore is en- 

 gaged on a monograph of the species of cotton 

 {Gossypimi) of which he considers there are but five. 

 Professor Todaro is performing a similar task, and 

 enumerates thirty-four. Dr. Hooker, it is stated, 

 has faith only in three, whilst Dr. Seemann recog- 

 nizes upwards of thirty. Dr. Boyle thought that 

 there were but four, and some other authors believe 

 in forty. Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? 



Seed Lying Dormant.— A friend of mine had a 

 small plot of ground (about half an acre) planted 

 with turnips for seed. At the proper time the seed 

 was pulled, dried, and tlirashed. Immediately after 

 the crop was carried away the ground was trenched 

 " a spit deep ;" and in the autumn planted with 

 filbert tree_s. It continued as a filbert orchard for 

 twenty-one years, when the trees were grubbed up, 

 and the ground trenched as before, after which it 

 was soon covered with a luxuriant crop of turnips, 

 doubtlessly from the shaken seed when it grew the 

 crop of turnip-seed tw"enty-oue years before. — /. 

 Fuinsoii, York, 



At a recent meeting of the Natural History Society 

 of Dublin, Mr. E. J. Eoot read a very useful paper, 

 entitled "Botanical Notes in the Midland Coun- 

 ties." 



The Y_ew-in-the-Oak.— The yew occasionally 

 presents itself in very curious positions, from it^ 

 l:)erries having been carried off and dropped or hidden 

 l)y_ birds. 1 have more than once seen it as an 

 epiphyte upon the willow, and one of considerable 

 l)ulk is now growing toithin. an oak, near Bibbes- 

 I'ord, W^orcestershire ; and from its size and the 

 wrenching power it has exerted upon the broken 

 trunk of its sustainer, has evidently grown there 

 for a period exceeding a century. The intertwining 

 of the contrasting foliage of the two trees has a 

 most remarkable effect. The ordnance surveyors 

 have even recorded the circumstance, and " the yew- 

 in-the-oak " appears marked in their map. — Edwin 

 Lees' Botanical Looker-out. 



A Ely-Catching Plant. — We have one plant 

 in our gardens, a native of North America, than 

 which none can be more cruelly destructive of insect 

 life, the dogsbane {Apocymcm androsannifoliuni) which 

 is generally conducive to the death of every fly that 

 settles upon it. Allured by :the honey on the nec- 

 tary of the expanded blossom, the instant the trunk 

 is protruded to feed on it, the filaments close, and, 

 catching the fly by the extremity of its proboscis, 

 detain the poor prisoner writhing in protracted 

 struggles till released by death, a death apparently 

 occasioned by exhaustion alone; the filaments then 

 relax, and the body falls to the ground. The plant 

 will at times be dusky from the numbers of im- 

 prisoned wretches. — Knapp's Journal of a Naturalist. 



The Uses of Hoese-Chestnuts. — ^Eor a great 

 number of years M. Klose of Berlin has operated on 

 a large scale on the horse-chestnut, and obtained the 

 following products : — 



1. Erom the burnt pericarp an alkaline ley. 



2. Erom the skin or husk (episperm) a very fine 

 charcoal, which forms the base of different printing 

 inks. 



3. Erom the amylaceous portion is extracted the 

 fecula, which can be transformed into dextrine, glu- 

 cose (sugar), alcohol, or vinegar, and which are all 

 adapted to industrial use. 



4. The fatty matter extracted serves to )nake a 

 kind of soap, and to render certain mineral colours 

 more fixed and solid. 



5. A yellow colouring matter which serves for dif- 

 ferent purposes. 



The use of the horse chestnut was commenced on 

 a large scale in France in 1855, by M. de CaUias, 

 and is still continued. He operates on more than 

 forty millions of pounds annually. — The Technologist. 



Eeatures of Plants.— To learn how to dis- 

 tinguish plants, and to identify those we have seen 

 before, and to qualify ourselves to give the reasons 

 how and why we know them again, and are sure 

 about them, is the first thing, accordingly, that we 

 have to do when we would become botanists. It 

 is not enough to remember a plant by its general 

 aspect, or to say of a lily, for instance, that it is 

 white, and smells sweet. A hundred other flowers, 

 which are not lilies, are white and fragrant, so that 

 the description goes for nothing unless we can 

 follow it up with an intelligible account of the 

 shape and structure of the plant, which will not only 

 be correct in regard to the bly, and apply to nothing 

 else, but convey a fair notion of the lily to a person 



