143 
Silver. —In Montana, experienced miners look for silver wherever the 
Eriogonum ovalifolium flourishes. This plant grows in low, dense bunches, its 
small leaves coated with thick white down, and its rose-coloured flowers being borne 
in clusters on long, smooth stems. 
Zinc. —“The ‘zinc violet,’Galmeiveilchen or Kelmesblume( Viola calaminaria), 
of Rhenish Prussia and neighbouring parts of Belgium, is there considered an almost 
infallible guide to calamine deposits, though in other districts it grows where no 
zinc ore has been found. In the zinc districts its flowers are coloured yellow, and 
zinc has been extracted from the plant. The same flower has been noticed at zinc 
mines in Utah.” (Ernest Lidgey on “Some Indications of Ore Deposits,” in Trans. 
Australasian Inst, of Mining Engineers, Vol. iv (1897), p. 116.) 
6. “The copper plant (Polycarpcsa spirostylis, E.v.M.),” a paper published 
by the Geological Survey of Queensland, in 1897, to illustrate Mr. S. B. J. 
Skertchly’s “ Report on the Mines of Watsonville, &c.” contains a figure of the 
plant—a plant reputed in Queensland to be always associated with copper lodes. 
This useful paper has added value by reason of the list which it contains of 
minerals in various parts of the world reputed to he accompanied by specific plants. 
7. In “The distribution of Desert Plants in relation to the Soil,” by S. le 
M. Moore, Journ. Linn. Soc. — Botany, xxxiv, 259 (1899), we have— 
Allusion has already been made to the prevalence of Myrtacere in certain districts between 
Southern Cross and Siberia ; and I propose now to describe briefly the peculiar flora found in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the large granite outcrops known as gnamma-rocks. The red soil, so common 
elsewhere, here gives place to soil of a pale-yellow colour, and this change is invariably accompanied by a 
change in the flora. 
The exclusively gnamma-rock plants observed by me are the following:— 
Keraudrenia integrifolia, Stackhousia 8pp., Cryptandra petreea, Oxylobium yraniticum, Mirbelia 
interophylloides Drosera spp., Kunzea sericea, Podolepis pallida, Ilelichrysum semipapposum, Ilehplerum 
Manglesii, Goodenia hederacea, Dampiera lavandnlacea, Tsotoma petreea, Solarium lasiophyllum, Eremophila 
granitica, Proslanthera Baxteri, Grevillea nematophylla, llake.a sube.rea, Parietaria debilis, Theylmitra 
longifolia and T. antennifera, Pterostylis pyramidalis, Borya nitida, Jnncus bu/onius, Centrolepis mutica, 
Scirpus cartilagineus and S. cernuus, Xothobena distans, Gymnogramme Pozoi. 
The whole of the paper, which is short, should he, read. 
8. In Proc. Linn. Son. N.S.W., xxv, 711 (1900), R. II. Cambage has notes 
on the geological formations, out west, on which Eucalyptus Morrisi, E. dealbata, 
and E. tereticornis are found. 
9. Cowles,* in a very comprehensive paper, gives the results of his observa¬ 
tions on the influence of rocks on vegetation. The physical and chemical causes 
for different vegetation on different rocks is discussed. Attention is called to the 
facts that the resemblances, and not the differences, are the most striking, and that 
a number of factors have hitherto been neglected. Siliceous and calcareous rocks 
give rise to siliceous soils, so that there is more uniformity in the soils produced 
than in the rocks from which they were derived. The physiographic factor has also 
* “ Contributions from the Hull Botanical Laboratory,” xxxiv, Bull. Am. Bureau Oeog., 2, 163- 176, 376-388. 
