316 Scientific Intelligence. 



Robinia Pseudo-acacia, L. — Alphonse de Candolle would not 

 admit this to be really naturalized in Europe, on the ground that 

 it multiplied only by the root. Mr. Lamic asserts that to his 

 knowledge, it spontaneously propagates by seeds as well. 



Gaura Lindheimeri, Engelmann and Gray (by some oversight 

 attributed to Linnseus) finds a place in this list because it was 

 found growing wild near a railway station in the Landes. Dr. 

 Guillaud thinks it came with American grain which had been un- 

 loaded there. This seems to us very improbable. It is more sup- 

 posable that it was an accidental escape from cultivation. 



Solidago Canadensis, L., jS. glabra, Desf., Erigeron Canadense, 

 Aster Novi-Belgii, &c, need not be remarked upon ; Boltonia 

 glastifolia is a recent arrival, but at some places near Bordeaux 

 it seems to have come to stay. 



Vittadinia triloba, DC. — M. Lamic says this is a native of 

 New Zealand; he should mean New Holland. But his plant 

 doubtless is Erigeron mxtcronatum, of Mexico, which persists in 

 European gardens under this totally wrong name, long since 

 corrected. 



Xanthium macrocarpon, DC., which we suppose is one of the 

 forms of A 7 '. Canadense, Mill., though perhaps not original to so 

 northern a region, was known in Europe only around Montpel- 

 lier in 1814; it is now largely diffused through a wide region. 



Asclepias Gornuti, has recently naturalized itself in Aquitaine, 

 where it spreads freely by its deep root-stocks. Lamic refers its 

 home to the southern Atlantic States ; we should refer it rather 

 to the northern. 



Sagittaria obtusa, Willd. — The male sex of this species has in 

 some way been transported from N. America to the waters of the 

 Bordeaux district, where it is spreading widely, although it never 

 fructifies ; in this respect it follows the example of Anacharis 

 Canadensis, which has also occupied the waters of the whole dis- 

 trict. 



Juncus tenuis, Willd., is also a late naturalization. Lamic 

 reckons Georgia and Carolina as its home : but its range is more 

 largely northern. 



From their omission, it would appear that Elatine Americana 

 and Ilysanthes gratioloides, which have somehow found their 

 way to the region of the Loire, have not reached the basin of the 

 Garonne. a. g. 



7. Pbofessoe Edwaed TucKEEMAisr, one of our oldest and best 

 botanists, and probably the most profound and trustworthy 

 lichenologist of the day, died at Amherst, Massachusetts, on the 

 fifteenth of March. a. g. 



8. Adaptation to an emergency in the Cicada septendecim. 

 — Dr. J. S. Newbeeet, in the School of Mines Quarterly (vol. vii, 

 January, 1886) describes a singular case of adaptation to a new 

 condition in the Seventeen-year locust. A surface of ground, in 

 the outskirts of Rahway, N. J., in which the larvae of the locust 

 had buried themselves, as the sequel shows, was afterward built 

 over. The cellar of one of the houses, which was without a floor 



