SCIE.NTIFIG SUMMARY. 
83 
BOTANY. 
The Ordeal Poison-Nut of Madacjasoar. — A description of tlie Tamjhinia 
mnenijlua, wHcli is now naturalised in New Soutli Wales^ is given by Dr. 
Bennett in tbe Journal of Botany for October. The largest and finest tree 
in the Sydney Botanic Gardens is twenty feet in height^ with a circum- 
ference of the branches full fifty feet. It flowers in November and Decem- 
ber^ and is often observed at the same time covered with fruit in different 
stages of maturity produced from the blossoms of the preceding year. The 
flower-buds are of a beautiful crimson colour j and, when expanded, the 
corolla is white, with tlie edges and under surface tinged with crimson ; 
the flowers are very fragrant, and their odour is retained for some time 
after they are withered. The fruit is oviform and about the size of a hen’s 
eggj it contains a hard stone or nut, enveloped in a dense fibrous substance. 
On this fibrous part being removed, there is seen a dark-brown shell, which, 
on being opened, is found to contain a white kernel, in size and appearance 
like an almond, and of a slightly bitter flavour. The fruit is at first of a 
green colour, then changes to a purplish-red tint on one side, but when fully 
ripe becomes wrinkled, and the entire fruit assumes a deep purplish-red 
colour. The whole of the tree yields a quantity of milky juice, very adhe- 
sive, and of a sweet creamy taste. 
The Potentilla Norvegica in England. — Mr. G. S. Gibson has found this 
gi’owing in Burwell Fen. He says it did not extend far, but was scattered 
around some thirty to fifty feet. It appeared quite at home, and at any rate 
must have been there for years. The plant is inconspicuous and likely to 
be passed over, except when in flower. 
Cinchona Bark from Eastern Bolivia. — On the 1st of October a cargo of 
bark was sold in London at from ten to twenty-five per cent, above the 
ordinary prices of the best Bolivian bark. Hitherto the large mountainous 
tracts of this district have been practically of no value, though producing 
quinine-yielding barks to perfection, because of the supposed impossibility 
of finding any means of communication from them to the sea for the purposes 
of commerce. This, however, seems now to have been overcome by Senor 
Pedro Bada, who brought his cargo across the continent and to this country 
by way of Para and Liverpool. Mr. J. E. Howard states in the Journal of 
Botany for November, that the specimens of bark received by him from 
Senor Bada agree with those of the morada and the zaniba (or negro) and 
zamhita (or negrilld) collected by Dr. Weddell in his last journey in Bolivia. 
A 'peculiar Carpical Structure in Elceagnus gonyanthes. — In this plant, which 
grows abundantly in thickets of a rocky islet in Macao harbour, the accres- 
cent, carnose, perigone-tube, covering the fruit, is most densely clothed 
inside with a close long white silky cotton, matted together into a pannose 
structure, so as to resemble more than anything else the cocoons of ‘‘ shep- 
herd-spiders.” This web has not the slightest attachment to the putanien. 
— Dr. Hance in the Journal of Botany for December. 
A Seaweed new to the British Flora . — The Elachista stellaris of Areschong’s 
Dried Scandinavian Algae ” has been discovered growing on Arthoclodia, 
on the Cardigan Bay side of the Carnarvonshire promontory at Pwllheli, 
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