CXXX11 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Hellebores, pronounces it to be a form of H . orientalis on account 
of the enduring character of its foliage. Specimens of most of 
the above varieties were shown by Mr. Jennings during the- 
course of his remarks. 
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE. 
Sir J. D. Hooker, K.C.S.I., in the Chair. 
Excrescence from Passiflora .—The Eev. M. J. Berkeley reported 
on a curious excrescence on the stem of Passiflora quadr angular is r 
which was sent to the Committee on February 11. It consisted 
of a very rough tuberculated mass, six inches in diameter, and 
about five inches long, occupying three-fourths of the stem, 
evidently bursting through the bark and pushing it on one side. 
Delicate thread-like rootlets were here and there developed from 
the tubercles, and two decided roots, one of which was affected 
exactly in the same way as the stem. Above the mass was an 
elliptic disc about inch long, swelling out from the stem, and 
clearly the origin of a new mass. On an examination- first, of 
one of the minute tubercles on the above-mentioned root, and 
afterwards of one of the larger tubercles, they were found to 
consist of large irregular cells mixed with scattered or fascicled 
tubes with very thick walls, consisting of concentric layers and 
pierced with narrow passages, the larger cells filled with starch 
granules, which become very dark in colour when treated with 
a solution of iodine. On examination of the younger portions of 
the bark the same structure was observed, and the same abund¬ 
ance of starch granules. A section through the disc showed a 
similar mass, mixed with deep red spots, in which either the 
cells themselves or the intercellular passages were gorged with 
coloured matter, which, however, did not wear exactly the 
appearance which is so common in diseased tissues when change 
has been produced by the presence of fungoid threads. The 
wood itself consists of a mass of large tubes with intermediate 
cellular tissues, but the tubes have not the same structure as 
the young bark, or it may be the Alburnum, so far as can be 
judged from the specimen before us. It is, however, so con¬ 
tinuous with the bark, that it seems rather to belong to it than 
the wood. Whichever it may belong to, the mass is beyond 
doubt an over-development or hypertrophy of this part of the 
stem, and is certainly one of the most curious instances we have 
