382 Scientific Intelligence. 



excelsa, the Castanha or Jiivia, is another oil-giving tree of the Amazon 

 district. — (Hooker's Journal of Botany, November 1854.) 



Cyperua polystachyua. — This plant grows on the mouth of the crater 

 of the extinct volcano of the island of Ischia. This is the only locality in 

 Europe. It nourishes there where steam is continually issuing at a tem- 

 perature of at least 150° Fahr. The plant is essentially a warm country 

 species, tropical and extra-tropical in Asia, Africa, and America. In the 

 European locality it is accompanied by Pteris longifolia. — (Hooker's 

 Journal, November 1854 ) 



Palma Jagua of the Orinoco. — Spruce mentions a species of Maxi- 

 miliana having a frond 34 feet long, composed of 426 pinnas, and a spadix, 

 which bore about a thousand fruits, and was a load for two men. The 

 palm was seen in the Orinoco, and is called Palma Jagua. 



Fungus in a Cavity of the Lung. — A married woman, mother of four 

 children, and 49 years of age, was in St Thomas's Hospital from the 29th 

 November to 21st December 1853. She had been labouring for two or 

 three years under the ordinary symptoms of chronic bronchitis, and of 

 this disease she died. She was examined on 22d December, twenty-four 

 hours after death. On examining the left lung there were found in its 

 apex two communicating cavities, together about equal to a pigeon's egg. 

 They were empty of secretion, but their parietes were moist, somewhat 

 reticulated, and covered more or less by an opaque adherent film of fibri- 

 nous material. On the upper surface of the septum by which the cavities 

 were imperfectly divided, was a soft velvety mass, occupying an area 

 about equal to that of half a finger-nail, and measuring close upon a line 

 or a line and a half in thickness. It was dry and powdery on the sur- 

 face, and had a dull greenish hue. It was firmly attached to the wall of 

 the cavity, and was clearly a mould or vegetable fungus growing in it. 

 Under the microscope it exhibited a distinct mycelium, or a perfectly de- 

 veloped fructification. The mycelium consisted of delicate- tubes, which 

 terminated in nodulated roundish points, and varied betw r een l-8000th 

 and l-10,000th of an inch in diameter ; they branched in different direc- 

 tions, and presented here and there little bulgings, which doubtless were 

 the commencement of new branches. The branches supporting the fruc- 

 tification were of considerable length, and much thicker than those be- 

 longing to the mycelium ; indeed, the largest measured about l-2000th 

 of an inch in thickness. They were cylindrical, without transverse septa, 

 presented a well-defined limiting membrane, and pellucid structureless con- 

 tents. At their free extremities they enlarged into globular or flask-like 

 expansions, the greatest diameter of which was generally about twice that 

 of the stalk from which they sprung. Their cavity was apparently per- 

 fectly continuous with that of the stalk, and their contents identical. The 

 spores were situated on these expansions, and in the perfect heads these 

 were so numerous and so thickly placed as almost to conceal them. The 

 fungus clearly sprang from the walls of the cavity in the lungs, and most 

 probably had grown during the life of the patient. The fungus resembles 

 some of the Mycoderms figured by Robin, as occurring in the lungs of 

 birds. It is probably much altered from its normal state, by the situation 

 in which it grew. — (Bristoive in Trans, of Patholog. Soc. of London, 

 vol. v. p. 38.) 



Aloe- Wood, or Aloes of Scripture. — This fragrant wood appears to be 

 produced by Aquilaria Agallochum. The tree is called in Hindi and 

 Bengali Aggur, Agar, or Uggor ; it is also denominated Uud, and the 

 Arabic name is Aghaluji. Sanscrit writers give three varieties of Aloe- 

 wood — 1. Aguru, the common sort ; 2. Calaguru or black aloes, being of 

 a darker colour than the common kind ; 3. Maugalya or Maugalyagura, 

 having the fragrance of the Mallica or Jasminum Sambae. The name 



