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her baptism was entered in the register as a daughter of " Wm."; 

 but a comparison of dates makes it almost certain that the child 

 was one of Leonard's large family. She was baptized Nov. 23rd, 

 1679, ranking after Eobert and before Alan, and was one of the five 

 (if not six) of his children who died in early childhood, for her 

 burial is noted as occurring on March 9th, 1678/9, when about four 

 months old. This augments the number of his children to thirteen, 

 instead of twelve. Pulteney's statement that Plukenet had a son 

 Richard, who was at Cambridge at the time of the publication of the 

 Almagestum in 1696, must, I think, be a mistake ; I have made careful 

 and repeated search through that volume, and my efforts have been 

 in vain ; other enquirers have experienced the same failure, and 

 Messrs. Trimen and Dyer, in their Flora of Middlesex, p. 375, cite 

 this only on the authority of Pulteney. It is most probable, con- 

 sidering the attachment to certain names in his family, that his 

 eldest son bore his own name, Leonard, in which case his first son 

 was his fifth child ; this Leonard is one of his seven children men- 

 tioned in his will. Dr. Leonard Plukenet used the same term to two 

 of his early associates — "olim condiscipulus noster" : to Uvedale 

 and Courten; but this term must simply mean schoolfellow, for 

 although Uvedale went to Cambridge, the names of Courten and 

 Plukenet are not in the list of Cambridge graduates of that time. 

 Uvedale was born at Westminster, May 25th, 1642, and was edu- 

 cated at Westminster School under the celebrated Dr. Busby, 

 whence it seems likely that both Courten and Plukenet are to be 

 reckoned as having spent a portion of their boyhood under the 

 same rigorous master. We find a few hints as to his early botanical 

 studies in the Almagestum ; he speaks of having observed PMomis 

 purpurea Linn, in Edward Morgan's garden at Westminster, near 

 the Abbey, about thirty years previously (p. 329), and Euphorbia 

 maculata nearly forty years before in Dr. Walker's garden (p. 372) : 

 most of his plants came from friends, but he mentions his own little 

 garden as affording a certain Centaurea (p. 193). His degree of 

 M.D. was probably not obtained at Leyden, for his name is absent 

 from the index to the Album studiosorum Academics Lugduno Batavia, 

 1575-1875.— B. Daydon Jackson. 



■ved the flowers of the onion couch, the so-called van bulbosa of 

 Avena elatior? I ask the question because in some specimens lately 

 submitted to me all the florets were hermaphrodite, instead of one 

 being male, one bisexual, in each spikelet. Moreover, the tuft of 

 hairs which is usually conspicuous at the base of the flower in A. 

 elatior is wanting in the var. bulboa. The herbarium specimens of 

 the "bulbous " form are destitute of flower, and, so far as I have seen, 

 no mention is made of the flowers in the books. It would be 

 interesting to know whether the bisexual condition of both flowers in 

 the spikelet is the ordinary condition or no. — Maxwell T. Mastebs. 



