1886-1887.] 533 



At the close of the reading of the above minutes several 

 members spoke in very pleasing terms of the memory of the late 

 Dr. Malcomson. 



The first item on the programme was a communication from 

 the Rev. H. W. Lett, M.A., T.C.D., " On the Fungi collected in 

 County Downin 1886." The speaker remarked that the scarcity of 

 fungi so noticeable on the occasion of the Club's excursion to 

 Hillsborough, was also observed throughout the British Isles, and 

 was attributed to the unfavourable weather. It was perhaps 

 due to this cause that the foray of 1886 produced only three 

 species new to the locality. The leaf and similar microscopic 

 fungi should have more attention paid them. Comparatively, 

 they are very easy of study, and with Cook's " Rust, Smut, and 

 Mildew," and a pocket lens, it is surprising how many can be 

 identified, In this branch the late Dr. Malcomson did much^ 

 and gave promise of good work, but a vast field still remains 

 unexplored. In the neighbourhood of Loughbrickland nine 

 new species were found during the summer, and a private 

 ramble in the Carngaver and Clandeboye woods in October 

 produced fourteen, also, not hitherto recorded from the North of 

 Ireland. 



The second communication was also by Mr. Lett, " On the 

 alleged Heliotropism of the Common Sunflower." The sun- 

 flower is one of a family of thirty-five members. In France it 

 is cultivated for the sake of the oil yielded by the seeds, and in 

 Central America for the purposes of fuel, the dry stems making 

 a good fuel for cooking. The heliotrope of the classics is quite 

 a different plant from the sunflower, or the modern " cherry 

 pie " of the flower garden, though, strange to say, the name 

 and the fabulous turning of the flower after the sun have got 

 mixed up. Heliotropism means turning after the sun— just 

 what the poet describes in the lines :— 



" The sunflower turns on her god when he sets, 

 The same look that she turned when he rose." 



This fancy — for it is nothing else — has just been given as a 

 fact in natural history by Mr. Worseley Bennison, Lecturer on 

 Botany in the Westminster Hospital, London, in a paper in the 



