1184 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



given, a selection which is useful to those who wish to grow only the 

 best. The Potentilla is raised to the dignity of a "florist's flower," its 

 origin being P. insignis and P. argyrophylla. — W. G. 



Pritchardia filifera, Inflorescence of. By Angiolo Pucci (Bull. 

 B. Soc. Tosc. Ort. 10, p. 309, October 1902).— This plant flowered for the 

 first time in Europe in Italy, viz. at Palermo, in 1893. It has since that 

 time produced a good deal of seed. The plant of which the following 

 account is given stands in the garden of the Countess Parravicino at 

 Campo Romano, near Viareggio ; is 24 years old ; has attained the height 

 of 10*50 m., that of the trunk alone being 6 metres ; the latter has a 

 circumference at the base of 3 metres, and the number of leaves it bears 

 is 84. The spadix issues from the axils of the leaves, is at first extended, 

 and later recurved and bent downwards ; slightly winged at the base, 

 about 4 metres long and branched. The panicled inflorescences, 20-40 cm. 

 long, issue from long, coriaceous, brownish spathes, which are divided at 

 the end, the upper ones free and strap- shaped, clothed laterally by a 

 woolly white caducous substance. The spikes are numerous, 6-10 cm. 

 long, with a sinuous rachis, the lower branched, the upper simple, pro- 

 ducing along their whole length small white, odorous, compactly placed, 

 sessile flowers ; the calyx is tubular, with three obtuse apical lobes ; the 

 corolla is open, expanded about halfway, with three oblong, lanceolate, 

 persistent lobes ; the six stamens are inserted in the throat of the corolla, 

 with flattened filaments, and oblong, versatile, straw-coloured anthers. 

 The ovary is nearly oval, trilocular, crowned with a filiform, erect, 

 sinuous, white style. The oblong-ovoid fruit has two prominent lateral 

 sutures ; is 6-7 mm. long and 4 mm. broad, at first green, afterwards a 

 deep brown, unilocular, one-seeded, crowned by the persistent style, with 

 a slightly branched pericarp ; the seed is ovoid-oblong, regular, dark, 

 with a horny endosperm. Two interesting photographs, one of the entire 

 plant, the other of the entire spadix, accompany the text. — W. C. W. 



Prunes, Spurious French. By P. Hariot (Le Jard. Nov. 20, 1902, 

 p. 337). — Besides importations from California, called ■ French Prunes,' it 

 is said that from Servia there are imported annually into France two 

 hundred thousand tens (225 millicn kilos) under the title of ' Agen Prunes,' 

 Agen being the centre of the Prune industry on the Garonne. It is 

 admitted that these imported Prunes are of first-class quality, but 

 measures of protection for this important French product are demanded. 



C. W. D. 



Quercus, Pedigree of the Genus. By Wilh. Brenner (Flora, vol. 

 xc. 1902, pp. 466 470). — In continuation of his previous paper on the 

 relations between climate and leaf- form in the Oaks (abstracted in 

 Journ. B.H.S., vol. xxvii. p. 233, the author seeks to trace the phylogeny 

 of the group. As deeply lobed forms are inconstant, he infers that their 

 origin is recent — a view confirmed by the fact that the older, pre-Pliocene, 

 fossil Oak-leaves are entire or but slightly lobed. As tests of consanguinity, 

 the weakest is the character of the margin ; the next, the nervation for both 

 these, is dependent on climate ; the safest is the relation of the secondary 

 veins to the primary nerves. He concludes that the actual characters are 



