Miscellaneous. 563 



that there is no essential change in its character throughout the 

 vegetable kingdoms, although the organs become progressively more 

 complicated, the lowest and simplest, however, possessing all that 

 is essential in the highest. Mr Carpenter intimated his intention 

 of making these views ere long the subject of a paper to be sent to 

 the Society. 



Dr Graham exhibited drawings, and gave an account of several 

 remarkable forms of trees which he had recently seen and examin- 

 ed. 1. In the M'Nab burying-ground at Killin, a small Scotch fir 

 (Pimis sylvestris) is suspended from one much larger, by adhesion 

 to its side. The suspended tree is alive both above and below the 

 point of union, and is of considerably greater diameter below that 

 point than above it. Notwithstanding a legend regarding it, that 

 thirty years ago, in a gale in February, a branch was broken from 

 a neighbouring tree, and stuck in a cleft in the one here alluded 

 to, Dr Graham thinks it quite certain that the suspended tree had 

 grown on the steep bank adjoining, and, lying against its neighbour, 

 had formed a union with it, whilst its own roots were yet in the 

 ground, and then, having been detached from the soil, remained 

 suspended, and lived by the fluids obtained through the point of 

 union. 2. The apparent union of a horse-chestnut and beech at 

 Cambusmore near Callander- A branch from the horse-chestnut 

 lies across the stem of the beech, and is pinched tightly in the acute 

 angle formed by the stem, and a large branch proceeding upwards 

 from it, so as to be completely imbedded and covered, with the ex- 

 ception of a narrow strip of the bark along the upper side of the 

 branch, which remains exposed. Dr Graham is satisfied that there 

 is no transfusion of fluids from the beech to the horse chestnut, not 

 even organic adhesion between them, and he feels assured that the 

 branch will die as soon as it is completely enveloped by the beech. 

 3. At Gargunnock House, Stirlingshire, two elm trees, (Ulmus 

 montand) grow near to each other, so near that they might be sup- 

 posed to arise from the opposite sides of a considerable stem, felled 

 many years before. Between these, and a little to one side, is the 

 stem of an ash tree, less than half the diameter of either of the 

 elms ; and in the centre are three stems of holly, two of which are 

 certainly portions of one tree, but whether the third is a distinct 

 tree or not, it was found difficult to determine. At their bases, all 

 these are so intermingled and so imbedded in each other, that it is 

 scarcely possible to believe that no organic union subsists between 

 them. One of the holly stems has died ; and another appears to 

 be fast going to decay, — for having become wholly imbedded in the 

 VOL. II. no. 12. p p 



