xxxiv 
EOTAL HOETICULTUBAL SOCIETY. 
vations at Cliiswick, and brought a Table sliowing the deviations 
above and below the average mean temperature for every day 
throughout the period during which a record had been kept. 
The Meeting then adjourned. 
GENERAL MEETING. 
SiGiSMUND ErCKEE, Esq., in the Chair. 
Mr. Berkeley, in the absence of Mr. Wilson, called attention to 
the two Gourds exhibited by Mr. Temple, from Java, under the 
name of Soocy Qua. They probably belong to some species of 
Luffa, one species of which {L. acutangula) is a favourite food in 
India in a young state, while others are poisonous. When older, 
the pulp is so full of hard fibres that it is inedible ; and the fibres 
themselves are used as sponges, and are sometimes made up into 
light hats. Since the Meeting, the following interesting infor- 
mation has been received from Mr. Temple. The Gourds were 
the produce of one or two seeds raised at Packington, sent from 
Eoo Chow, in China, by Mr. Temple's brother, who is Manager of 
the Oriental Bank. He had been in many parts of China, but had 
never seen the Soocy Qua (or Water-Cucumber) before. It is 
used in China as a vegetable, boiled and eaten with rice, but is 
served also in various w^ays and considered delicious. It some- 
times reaches a length of from 5 to 6 feet, and has a beautiful 
flower nearly as large as a Sunflower in diameter. Mr. Temple 
hopes to be able to cross it with the common Cucumber, which, 
however, is not very probable, as even the closely allied species of 
Ciicurhita seldom admit of hybridizing. 
Attention was called to Gongora jportentosa, which appears to 
have been derived from M. Linden as uniting CirrlicBa with Oon- 
goray a circumstance suspected long since by Keichenbach. It 
was stated, on the authority of Mr. Bateman, that a one-leaved 
Gongora is an anomaly; but Mr. Marshall, after the Meeting, 
intimated that this is not the case. Some of the principal Orchids 
in the show were noticed as being in peculiarly fine condition, 
especially JEpidendrum vitellinum majus. Odontoglossum pendulum, 
La Llave (0. citrosmum^ Lind.), was shown in great variety and 
beauty — some specimens with white, others with tinted flowers. 
