OBSERVATIONS ON SOME PLANTS EXHIBITED. 



191 



tubular corolla; (3) calyx, as a "saucer"; (4) stamens, 

 petaloid ; (5) various combinations. 



Sweet Peas and Snapdragons. — These afforded good in- 

 stances of a very great variety of colours — the result of inter- 

 breeding alone, without any specific crossing whatever. 



Ph^nocoma prolifera. — Fine flowering plants exhibited 

 by Mr. Balchin, of Hassock's Gate, and some Ehodanthes illus- 

 trated the so-called " Everlasting " Flowers, with coloured or 

 white and scarious bracts to the involucre. Mr. Henslow 

 observed that the little yellow European Everlasting was con- 

 founded by the ancients with the purple -flowering plant known 

 as Amarantus. Dioscorides observed that some people call the 

 Helichryson (the true Everlasting) by the name Amarantos, a 

 word signifying " not decaying," this word being still used for 

 the purple-flowered "Love-lies-bleeding," of the Order Amarant- 

 acese. The phrase " an inheritance . . . undefiled, and that 

 fadeth not away " (1 Pet. i. 4) is in Greek a^apai tos, the name 

 of the Everlasting Plant. Pliny described the use made of 

 these flowers in his day — in forming chaplets for the statues of 

 the gods ; the origin, in all probability, of the circlets of im- 

 mortelles used so largely on the Continent for funeral decora- 

 tions. The foliage of the Phasnocoma is identical in form with 

 that of Thuias, high alpine Veronicas of New Zealand, and of 

 Salsola Pachoi of North African deserts, &c, showing how 

 excessive drought brings about a similar adaptation in the foliage 

 of very different plants, but growing in similar though widely 

 separated countries. 



Cham^rops Fortunei. — A fine male inflorescence of this 

 Palm led the lecturer to speak of the sexes of plants, that of the 

 Date being well known to the ancients. Though the knowledge 

 of the uses of stamens and pistils was lost in the Middle Ages, 

 it was rediscovered in the seventeenth century, if the current 

 belief be true that it was Sir T. Millington, Savilian Professor 

 at Oxford in 1676, who maintained it ; but both Grew and Eay 

 soon after seem to have been quite aware of it ; while Linnaeus, 

 of course, based his classification upon it. 



Hybrid Rose. — An interesting hybrid, supplied by Mr. Geo. 

 Paul, was that of Bosa canina, grandiflora xB. Indica. The 

 hybrid had the stem and foliage much like those of the Dog Eose, 

 but more glossy and tinted with red. The buds, with an orange 



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