SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Apkil 1, 1865. 



BOTANY. 



Common Things Unknown.— In the comity of 

 Devon the cowslip, nightingale, and mistletoe are 

 unknown. The flower which in the county of 

 Somerset is called the daffodil, is in Devonshire 

 called the cowslip. — /. A. 



Savanilla. Rhatany. — All who are devoted to 

 the study of materia medica will be glad to learn 

 that Mr. Daniel Hanburyhas determined the source 

 of the Savanilla rhatany root of commerce to he 

 that of Krameria Ixina Tr. and PI. 



Dk. F. C. Schxjbeler has recently been no- 

 minated Professor of Botany and Director of the 

 Botanical Garden at Christiana. — Gardener's Chro- 

 nicle. 



New Bkitish Lichens. — The Rev. W. A. 

 Leighton announces the discovery by him of two 

 other new British lichens. One of these [Lecidea 

 tantilla Nyl.) he found in October last on wood 

 palings at Stableford, near Bridgenorth, Shropshire; 

 the other (named by Dr. Nylander Odontotrema 

 longius) in January, 1865, on railings near Shrews- 

 bury. — Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist. 



New Source of Theine. — It has recently been 

 announced that theine, the chemical principle of tea 

 and coffee, has been found in the cola or guru-nut 

 of Soudan {Cola aciminatd). " It would probably 

 prove a futile task to attempt the discovery 

 throughout the vegetable kingdom of tropical 

 West Africa of any analogous product that occupies 

 such an exalted position in the social or dietetic 

 economy of the negro tribes, or constitutes such an 

 important article of traffic in Soudan, as the seeds of 

 the cola-tree." — Tharmaeezdical Journal, 



Another use for Nettles.— There is a use of 

 nettles well-known to the lower class in this neigh- 

 bourhood, namely, that of feeding pigs. The poor 

 people send out their children with thick gloves on 

 their hands, and a knife and rope ; the children then 

 cut down as many nettles as they can carry, round 

 which they tie the rope and trudge home, and boil 

 the nettles, which destroys the power of the formic 

 acid, leaving the nettles quite harmless, but forming 

 a very nutritious food for their pigs. — /. iZ., Bel- 

 fast. 



British Hoses. — M. Deseglise has recently 

 completed a review of the roses of Britain and 

 Prance in the pages of the " Naturalist." Mr. J, 

 G. Baker (in Seemann's "Journal of Botany") 

 says : — " At length the true Uosa collina Jacq. may 

 take its place upon our British lists. Mr. T. R. A. 

 Briggs has met Avith it in considerable quantity in 

 hedges and thickets in the neighbourhood of 

 Plymouth, and as the stations are upon both sides 



of the Tamar, they are consequently both in Devon 

 shire and Cornwall." 



Vegetable Origin of Diamonds.— Professor 

 Goeppert, who recently obtained the prize offered 

 by the Dutch Scientilic Society for an essay on this 

 subject, says: — "In my essay I have given ample 

 proof that at one time diamonds were soft bodies. . . 

 I have not yet attained any results with respect to 

 graphite, but in diamonds I have found numerous 

 foreign bodies enclosed, of which, if they cannot be 

 said to be evidently and undoubtedly vegetable in 

 their origin, it would, on the other hand, be difficult 

 to deny their vegetable nature altogether. — See- 

 'mann's Journal of Botany. 



St. Winefrid's Blood. — The blood-speckled 

 stones, at the bottom of St. Winefrid's-well, at 

 Holywell, in Elintshire, were long appealed to as 

 miraculous relics of St. Winefrid's blood, till the 

 prying botanist resolved them into an algoid produc- 

 tion, known as Palmella crnenta, which has been 

 frequently taken for blood spilt upon the ground. 

 Thus Caxton quaintly says : — 



" In the welraes ofter than ones, 

 Ben found reed spcrcled stones, 

 In token of the blood reed 

 That the mayd Wenefrede 

 Shadd at that pytte 

 Whan hyr throte was kytte." 



— Leei Botanical Looker-ont. 



Servian Flora.— One peculiarity of Servia, Mr. 

 Denton says, will not fail to be noticed by an 

 English traveller. The flora is almost entirely 

 English. The banks skirting the roads which wind 

 through the forests are carpeted with the wild 

 strawberry, and the open glades which run into the 

 woods abound with the wild raspberry; the thin 

 soil on the steep sides of many of the hills is covered 

 with the whortleberry ; the weeds and wild flowers 

 of the fields also are those which are commonly met 

 with in England; violets and daisies, pansies and 

 spurge, primroses and oxlips, forget-me-nots and 

 speedwells, orchises of all shades, and wild garlic, 

 meadow saffroji and the cuckoo flower, or ragged 

 robin. The hedges are powdered with honeysuckle 

 and the clematis, and fringed with yellow broom, 

 with bramble bushes, dog roses, and the white and 

 blackthorn. Trees, indeed, that are comparatively 

 rare in England are met with in profusion in Servia. 

 The Avild pear and cherry, the plum, and the apple, 

 may be seen in great numbers in the woods ; the 

 acacia and laburnum are met with by the sides of 

 the roads, and lilacs abound on all the hill sides. — 

 Quarterly Bevieto. 



Abnormal Larch Cones. — As a field-naturalist 

 I have ever been fond of a ramble in the larch plan- 

 tation. In winter the ground beneath is strewn 



