﻿115 



find, near St. Asaph, N. Wales, precisely the same phenomenon. 

 A healthy plant, already in good bloom, attracted my attention in 

 January by a peculiar contraction of the lower half of many of its 

 unopened catkins. In these the contracted part consisted of her- 

 maphrodite flowers ; in some other cases the whole catkin was 

 hermaphrodite. An examination of several catkins shows that the 

 greater number (over 70 per cent.) of the abnormal flowers contain 

 one style surrounded by either four or six stamens, or more correctly 

 half-stamens. In a few there were Jive or seven or even eight 

 stamens ; and the styles in the less developed flowers nearest the 

 base of the catkins sometimes numbered as many as four. In two 

 flowers, along with seven normal stamens, there was an eighth 

 abortive one, its upper half being converted into a style. The 

 abnormal flowers seem to be quite barren. There is no appearance 

 of an ovary, and the styles wither up before the bursting of the 

 anthers. It is well known that bisexual catkins are occasionally 

 found in species of Salix, Populus, Castanea, and other monoe- 

 cious and dioecious plants ; and Dr. Bail (Bot. Zeitung, 1870, 400) 

 records the occurrence of pistils in the male flowers of hazel as not 

 uncommon ; I have found them, but less abundantly, on two other 

 plants in this neighbourhood, as well as in Lancashire. A more 

 extraordinary phenomenon is that recorded by M. Leon Wehrli, of 

 Zurich, who discovered, near Aarau, in Switzerland, and has 

 fully described and figured in Flora for 1892 (pp. 246-264), a hazel 

 in which all the male catkins are completely metamorphosed into 

 abnormal pistillate catkins. M. Wehrli also gives a careful summary 

 of the literature bearing on this subject, and of recorded instances of 

 interchange of pistils and stamens during the last century and a 

 half.— 0. A. Newdigate. 



Eleocharis acicularis (Journ. Bot. 1893, pp. 309, 371 ; 1894, 

 pp. 54, 87). — No doubt the long-stemmed submerged form of this 

 plant, referred to by Babington and Syme, and also in Mr. Bennett's 

 note as filling up a ditch to the exclusion of everything but Nupfiar, 

 might easily be confounded with submerged forms of Juncus supinus r 

 as suggested by Mr. Beeby. But I have never observed the Jutunu 

 growing with short leaves of a uniform length of two to four inches, 

 as does the form of Eleocharis to which I have referred. Only a 

 fortnight ago I gathered many young plants of J. supinus thrown 

 up from deep water on the margins of a tarn in the Mourne Moun- 

 tains. The capillary pale green leaves much resembled E. acicuiaris r 

 but even in very young plants some of them were six inches in 

 length. I have looked at my specimens again, and have no doubt 

 they are E. acicularis. Probably, as Mr. Bennett remarks, this is 

 the forma submersa Hj. Nilss. ; it certainly might easily be mistaken 

 for 8. parvtdus, as Norman suggests. Mr. Linton's Surrey plant seems 

 to be the same as the Irish one. But can the term " leaves " be 

 substituted for " stems " when the species is barren ? — B. Lloyd 

 Praeger. 



Tbifolium Molinerii Balb. in W. Suffolk. — A specimen gathered 

 some years ago, in a sandy field near Brandon, taken at the 



----- - r 2 J 



