Ixii PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Galls on Birch. — Mr. Hans Gussow showed some of the large mal- 

 formed growths which are so common on the silver birch, where the 

 buds are injured by mites, and as a result produce numberless lateral and 

 adventitious buds, forming a confused mass of growths similar to those 

 shown by ^Ir. Nicholson on the ash. The mite in this case is Eriophyes 

 rudis. 



Scale on Willoiv. — Mr. Lynch, V.M.H., who was heartily congratulated 

 by the Committee on the occasion of his receiving the Victorian ]\[edal 

 of Honour, showed shoots of willow badly attacked by a scale insect, 

 Chionaspis salicis, Linn. 



Variation in Potatoes. — Dr. Masters commented on the remarkable 

 exhibit of potato varieties shown in the hall by Messrs. Sutton. Mr. A. 

 Sutton, V.M.H., drew special attention to Solanum Commersonii and to 

 a specimen of the tubers raised by M. Labergerie, which that gentleman 

 called S. Commersonii ' Voilette,' as he considered it to have originated 

 as a sport from S. Commersonii. M. P. Vilmorin, who had grown 

 S. Commersonii for many years (and, like others, had never found any 

 sporting proclivities in that species), regarded the alleged sport as a tuber 

 of the ' Blue Giant,' which has been in cultivation for a long period, and 

 which had by some accident got mixed with the tubers of S. Commersonii. 

 Mr. Sutton showed ' Blue Giant ' and the alleged sport side by side, and 

 pointed out that the slight differences between the two were only such as 

 might be expected when two examples of the same variety grown in 

 widely separated districts were shown side by side. Mr. Worsley said 

 that M. Haeckel claimed to have obtained intermediate forms between 

 S. Commersonii and the alleged sport, and Mr. Sutton said that 

 M. Labergerie considered that he had seen the sport reverting completely 

 to S. Commersonii. 



•Plants Exhibited. 



Mr. E. 1. Lynch, V.M.H., of Cambridge, showed a flowering 

 specimen of Alpinia officinanim. Hence the " radix galangcT minoris " of 

 the pharmacologists, a plant that very rarely flowers in this country. 



He also showed some specimens of Rosa Icexigata, a large-flowered 

 species of rose, which he thought would be useful in corridors. 



Crocus veluchensis, Herb. — This Grecian species, now for the first 

 time seen in cultivation, was shown by Mr. A. E. Bowles, F.L.S., who 

 compared the actual specimens with the published figures. The present 

 species differs from C. vermis and C. hanaticus in its diphyllous proper 

 spathe and in the absence of basal spathe ; from C. Sicheri (specimens of 

 which were also shown) in the absence of the yellow spots in the throat 

 and in the small corm. 



Dr. Masters showed flowering specimens of Daphne odora, which 

 proved perfectly hardy in the open ; Prunus Mumc, one of the Japanese 

 plums ; and Jasminnm p)rimulinum, a newly introduced Chinese species 

 — all cut from the open ground, and sent by Mr. Veitch, of Exeter. 



Mr. A. Sutton, F.L.S., showed specimens of Pleione yunnanensis, 

 Rolfe, which had been sent to them by a missionary from China, and had 

 been grown on by them. The greater number of species of this genus 

 are native in the mountains of India, but this came from farther to the 



