10 



the paths, and any person running, walking, or sliding, up or 

 down the grassed embankments, will be liable to be expelled 

 from the Gardens." In addition to Bye-Law No. 8 : " The 

 indiscriminate use of butterfly nets is prohibited, but permission 

 to use such nets may be obtained from the Director or Curator, 

 and will be available for- the day of issue only. This permission 

 will not be granted on Sundays, and may at once be withdrawn 

 if the privilege is abused." I regret having to report that the 

 attempt ts raise plants of the Victoria Begia was a failure, the 

 seeds planted proved to be bad, only two plants were reared, 

 both of which were weakly and were never fit to place in the 

 tank. A white-flowered Nywiphwa, which was brought from 

 the East Coast by Mr. A. D. Millar and given to the Society by 

 him, flowered profusely in the tank, and bore two kinds of 

 flowers, the usual and conspicuous one which appeared well 

 above the surface of the water and ripened seeds in abundance, 

 and an abnormal one which seldom reached the surface, was 

 more or less incomplete and instead of seeds bore a hard woody 

 tuber. Specimens, including one of the tubers, were sent to 

 Kew, and a plant was reared from the tuber and flowered, and I 

 am informed by Dr Stapf that it proved to be Nymph&a Lotus; 

 Linn. He says : " The flowers referred to, that is the abnormal 

 ones, represent a condition identical with, or very similar to, 

 the state described by C. A Barber as N. Lotus var monstrosaiu 

 Annals of Botany, Vol. V., pp. 105-116. The essential feature 

 of it is the replacement of the floral organs usually with the 

 exception of the calyx, by reduced foliage leaves, often with leaf 

 buds in their axils. In the case described by Mr. Barber the 

 flower is usually transformed into a tuber." It is interesting to 

 note that the plant examined by Mr. Barber was brought from 

 Lake Nyassa by Sir John Kirk in 1886. It appears to us that 

 these abnormal flowers are only produced during the winter 

 months, but this requires confirmation by longer observation of 

 the plant. 



Packets of seeds have been received in exchange during the 

 year as under : — 



Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ... ... 7 



„ ,, ,, Mauritius ... ... 7 



,, ,, ,, Calcutta ... ... 2 



Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Australia ... 20 



,, Port Darwin ,, . ... 21 



,, Madras ... ... 1 



„ Straits Settlements ... 1 



,, Trinidad, West Indies ... 1 



„' Singapore ... ... 6 



,, Sydney, Australia ... .. 53 



„ Maritzburg, Natal ... ... 4 



