Mat 1, 1865.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



115 



EunzE-LEAYES TKiroLiATE. — The seedliug furze 

 {Ulex) has, at first, no spiues. The youug stem is 

 clothed with leaves from twelve to twenty in number ; 

 these are shortly petiolate and trifoliate, consisting 

 each of three small elliptical hairy articulated leaf- 

 lets. When the stem becomes five or six inches in 

 length (usually), the trifoliate leaves cease to be 

 developed, and spines are then produced. We thus 

 see that in Ulex the perfect leaves appear during 

 the early period of the plant's development, while 

 in the Australian Leguminosce, their production is 

 delayed till the maturity of the plant. Ulex, how- 

 ever, is truly a plant with compound trifoliate leaves, 

 not simple-leaved, as stated in many works. — Fro- 

 fessor Lciwson, in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. 



Botany at the Cape. — The Rev. Dr. Brown, 

 Colonial Botanist at Cape Town, has recently ad- 

 dressed a circular to the missionaries in South 

 Africa, beyond the Cape Colony, calling upon them 

 to procni'e collections of plants, and forward them 

 through him, or direct, to Europe, so that the vege- 

 tation of that portion of the world may become 

 better known. A letter from the same gentleman, 

 containing further particulars of that singular plant, 

 the JFelwifschia mirabilis, has also been printed and 

 ch'culated. 



Notes on Ikish Plants. — 1. Barharea inter- 

 media. — This species I inserted in my Flora of 

 Belfast as B. prcecox. Mr. G. More, E.L.S., a 

 few days since, suggested to me the probability 

 of its being B. intermedia, which he was the 

 first to discover in Great Britain, in the county of 

 Armagh. On -comparing the Irish plant with B. 

 prcecox and with aPrench specimen gIB. intermedia, 

 its affinities with the latter were at once obvious. 

 This species first occurred to me, in 1S62-G3, very 

 sparingly about Belfast, but in several localities. 

 During the spring of last year it occurred in pro- 

 fusion on the borders of fields and on railway -banks, 

 on the light sandy soils of the valley of the river 

 Lagan, from Derriaghy to Hillsborough, especially 

 along the line of the new railway from Lisburn to 

 Hillsborough. Prom Hillsborougli it rapidly de- 

 creased in numbers ; but a few stragglers I had now 

 and then met with as far west as Bainbridge. Its 

 diminution in this direction is to be accounted by 

 the fact that a few yards west of Hillsborough the 

 underlying rock is an argillaceous slate-rock, or a 

 slaty shell. 



2. Ruhus KeeUeri. — A batch of Belfast ruhi, sent 

 to me, and collected by my late companion in the 

 field, Mr. S. A. Stewart, were kindly named a few 

 days since by Professor C. C. Babington ; he makes 

 the following note on one specimen : — " CorylifoUus 

 ^=Kcehlerii, alone is new to the country." The 

 locality yielding this new species is Carmoney, 

 situated 3| miles to the north-east of Belfast, or 

 the slopes of the Belfast hill range. — BaljjJi Tate, 

 F.G.S. 



Preservative Power op Perns.— In corrobora- 

 tion of your correspondent H. M.'s statement re- 

 specting the superior preserving quality of the 

 bracken fern over straw, I may mention that the 

 country people in this part of Somerset thatch over 

 their potatoe " buries " with it, saying that they 

 keep better under it than when straw is used. 

 Perns possess a volatile oil and resin, to which 

 " the peculiar odour " noticed by H. M. is probably 

 due, and which most likely makes them distasteful 

 to insects, &c., though I well remember one after- 

 noon last summer watching a hive-bee industriously 

 using its proboscis on the young shoots of the 

 bracken, and viewing it through a pocket magnifier, 

 I found it sucked the moisture exuding from the 

 young stems of the undeveloped fronds. The larv^ 

 of Hejnalis velleda (swift moth) feeds on the roots of 

 this fern. Our Exmoor ponies crop its young fronds 

 with avidity, and donkies also eat them and other 

 common ferns. The young fronds of ferns are 

 sometimes attacked by caterpillars when cultivated 

 in a green-house, and I have found a white grub 

 banqueting on the dried fronds of Scolopendriim 

 vulgare in my herbarium. Perns in tropical climates 

 are said to contain a greater degree of nutriment, 

 while the medicinal qualities are not so great as in 

 those of temperate regions. In India, New Zealand, 

 &c., several kinds are used as food, and it is 

 possible that the ferns of these countries may be 

 more tempting to the insect tribe than they are 

 with us. Hugh Miller in his " Testimony of the 

 Bocks" says, "The thickets of ferns which cover 

 our hUl sides scarce support the existence of a 

 single creature," which, 1 believe, is a true state- 

 ment ; but perhaps it is hardly correct to infer from 

 this, that the luxuriant ferns which formed tlie 

 earliest terrestrial flora of these islands were equally 

 unfavourable to the support of animal life: they 

 doubtless resembled in their qualities the ferns of 

 tropical climates ; and it would be interesting to 

 learn from the observations of naturalists in those 

 climes, what insects and other animals feed upon 

 them. In Premont's "Journey to the Bocky 

 Mountains " he relates that their horses and mules 

 feed upon Uqtiisetum hyemale, and in another part 

 he speaks of their animals luxuriating on " prele," 

 that is, Eqidseti'M, commonly called "horse-tails," 

 allies of the fern genus. In the "Botanical Chart " 

 of my lamented friend Miss Warren it is stated, 

 " that in the north of Europe starch is made from 

 the roots of Osmunda, and bread from those of 

 the bracken, and that in the times of Henry 

 the Sixth the people of England were reduced to the 

 use of this bread." — /. Gifford. 



Believe me, the talent of success is nothing 

 more than doing what you can do well, and doing 

 well whatever you do, \Yithout a thought of fame. 

 — Longfellow. -, .? 



