SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
83 
of this plant, that it (which is a native of Australia) has the power when 
planted in marshy lands of improving their sanitary conditions, as has been 
proved in Algeria and Cuba. It drains the swamps, and at the same time 
gives off antiseptic vapours. 
Lilium Washingtonianum described twice. — At a recent meeting of the 
Acad, of Nat. Sci. of Philadelphia, Mr. Thomas Meehan referred to 
a paper by Professor Alphonso Wood, entitled a “Sketch of the Natural 
Order of Liliacese ” of the Pacific coast, published in the volume of the 
u Proceedings ” for 1868, in which he describes a “ new species ” of Lilium as 
L. Washingtonianum , giving, as a reason for the name, that it was generally 
known as the “ Lady Washington ” by the miners. Professor Wood said, in 
his paper, that it was remarkable so fine a plant had been overlooked by 
other botanists. It so happens that it had not been overlooked, but had 
been described ten years previously by Dr. Kellogg, in the “ Proceedings of 
the California Academy ” for 1858. Through the unusual circumstance of 
two authors employing the same name, the confusion and trouble which 
loose and careless habits in describers bring on students, in the present case, 
will not be great j yet it is but just to Dr. Kellogg that this correction 
should go into the records of the Academy. 
Are Double Flowers a Natural or an Artificial Results — It has been 
stated at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia, May 6 (only 
now, November, printed and circulated in England), by Mr. Thomas Meehan, 
who certainly appears to be one of the most industrious labourers in the 
botanical field in America, that on several occasions, during the few past 
years, it had been noticed among the variations in nature that the tendency 
to produce double flowers was by no means the special prerogative of the 
florist to produce. Many of our commonest wild flowers, which no one 
would think of cultivating, had double forms in cultivation which were 
no doubt originally found wild. Thus we had a double Ranunculus acris, 
Ranunculus bulbosus, R. Ficaria, R. repens, and some others. He had him- 
self placed on record the discovery, wild on the Wissahickon, of a double 
Saxifraga virginica, and this season a fellow member, Dr. James Darrach, 
had found, in the same location, a double Trailing Arbutus, Epigcea repens. 
There were, in plants, two methods by which a double flower is produced. 
The axis of a flower was simply a branch very much retarded in its develop- 
ment, and generally there were, on this arrested branch, many nodes 
between the series forming the calyx or corolla, and the regular stamens 
and carpels, which were entirely suppressed. B,ut when a double flower 
was produced, sometimes these usually suppressed nodes would become 
developed, in which case there was a great increase in the number of petals, 
without any disturbance in the staminal characters. But at other times 
there was no disturbance of the normal character of the axis. The stamens 
themselves merely became petaloid. This was the case in the Fpigcea, now 
found by Dr. Darrach. He is not alone in calling attention to these facts 
in wild flowers, for Dr. Gray and others have recorded instances in the 
“American Naturalist.” 
A New Fungus Ceratostoma Helvetia. — At one of the meetings in the 
autumn of the Eastbourne Natural History Society, Mr. 0. J. Muller 
placed on record the discovery of a highly curious fungus, which he found 
