HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



sedeni : (I.) Having a median fertile stamen occupy- 

 ing the normal position of the staminode. There 

 was no median sepal. The two lateral sepals were 

 distinct. No lateral petals were present, but a petal 

 occupying the position of the median sepal. (2.) 

 The corolla of this flower was composed of four 

 petals, the lateral petals were half-curved, and the 

 lower petals assumed the saccate form of the labellum. 

 The two lower sepals were concrescent ; the andrce- 

 cium and gynaacium were normal. The first flower 

 affords an example of a Cypripedium in a dimerous 

 condition, and the second an example of pleiomery 

 or plurality of parts. Seven malformed flowers of 

 Phagus grandiflora, three of which had two of 

 their petals adhering to and forming a hood over the 

 column. Four flowers in which the dorsal sepal was 

 united to the column. The flowers of Ophrys apifera 

 are very variable. This year I have seen several 

 flowers in which the two pouches of the rostellum 

 were more or less distant from each other, and I 

 have frequently observed flowers with their pollinia 

 differing in shape.— J. H. A. Hicks, F.R.H.S. 



Curious Growth of Fungi. — During one of 

 my rambles in November, through a wood near 

 Croydon, I collected a large number of specimens 

 of fungi ; many of them exceedingly beautiful, and 

 all full of interest to the student of natural history. 

 In one instance a common variety which abounded 

 among the fallen leaves of the oaks and beeches, 

 presented a growth so curious that perhaps an 

 account of it will interest some of your numerous 

 readers. Three plants, belonging to a light brick- 

 red-coloured variety of Agaric, with gills of a paler 

 and more delicate shade, had sprung up close to one 

 another and were connected together by their epi- 

 dermis, the stems and gills of each individual being 

 distinct and separate. There were no marks of suture 

 at the juncture of the three caps, and the largest of 

 the group was pulled over sideways by its smaller 

 neighbours. These facts seem to show that the three 

 plants came into existence in this condition, thus form- 

 ing a sort of botanical Siamese triplet which I believe 

 is very uncommon in this class of fungus. I naturally 

 wished to preserve such a curiosity, but on examina- 

 tion at home I found the plants to be infested by 

 small white, footless, black-headed maggots, the 

 larvae, I suppose, of a species of fly. Closer scrutiny 

 revealed a minute puncture in each cap, by means of 

 which the ova had been deposited by the parent-fly, 

 in the plant that was to supply food to the larvae 

 when hatched, and thus an organism that is, in a 

 sense, parasitical upon decaying vegetation, was in its 

 turn preyed upon by another. A few days later, when 

 walking over the downs, I disturbed a flock of rooks, 

 which proved to have been feeding on maggots 

 similar to those just described, for the ground was 

 strewn with fragments of fungi pecked to pieces by 

 them in prosecuting their search. I noticed here 



another curious fact with regard to fungi. Wherever 

 the turf had been taken up and removed, the place 

 was marked by a ring of toadstools that had sprung 

 up along the circumference of the part bared. I was 

 unable to discern any cause for this, but the occur- 

 rence was too marked and frequent to have been 

 accidental. — F. G. Bing. 



"Sporting" Clover and Rare Plants. — 

 Apropos of Mr. G. H. Bryan's note in your issue of 

 this month, it may perhaps not be without interest to 

 record that I also found the proliferous state of 

 Trifolium repenson the bank of the Midland Railway, 

 near Mill Hill, N.W., this summer, and not far from 

 it a similarly monstrous form of Plantago major. Close 

 to these, and evidently introduced in ballast, I found 

 what an eminent botanical authority stigmatised, 

 when I showed them to him, as "a bad lot" viz: 

 Bartsia incana, Camelina sativa, Anthemis tincloria, 

 a Potentilla (I think, hirta), and a Dracocephalum. 

 These five were all growing within the space of one 

 square yard. Bartsia incana I subsequently found 

 again in abundance on the Great Northern Railway 

 near Finchley, in company with a blue labiate, which 

 I have not been able to identify. On the Midland 

 line near Hendon, I found a solitary plant of Erysi- 

 mum orientate, whilst Nasturtium sylvestre was grow- 

 ing in abundance beside the Great Northern near High- 

 gate. Ranunculus lingua still grows in the Totteridge 

 ponds, and though Teucrium botrys has for the last 

 few years been extinct at its former station near Mill 

 Hill, Polygonum officinale (or multiflorus ■?) still exists 

 in the neighbourhood, but is so persistently eaten 

 down by cattle before it has time to flower that its 

 identification is difficult. I may add that I found a 

 very fine albino bloom of Centaurca scabiosa in Sep- 

 tember, at Cromer, while taking a fine haul of the 

 larva of the privet hawk-moth, which always seems 

 most abundant by the sea. If you think these notes 

 of any interest, pray make what use you like of them. 

 — A. E. Hudson. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Colouring of Flowers. — While the white- 

 flower question is being noticed by the many botani- 

 cal and other readers of Science-Gossip, I will 

 mention a few which I think will be useful to its long 

 list of notices. Plants of Campanula rotundifolia I 

 have several times found quite colourless, or, on the 

 other hand, coloured to excess "blue purple." 

 Orchis pyramidalis is often very variable in colouring ; 

 on a hedge-bank in Kent I jaw a large cluster of 

 these plants, perhaps fifty, amongst them was a pair 

 with light cream-coloured flowers ; others of the same 

 group were of a deep rose-purple or madder colour. 

 Of Gentiana amare/la, an albino specimen sent to me 

 by Mr. A. Pickard, of Wolsingham ; this is the first 

 " albino " of this plant I have seen, although I saw 

 a great many of them normally coloured in Kent and 

 Surrey this year. Of Gentiana campestris I found 

 five cslourless specimens growing in a group on Box 



