J CTLY. 
155 
which, he said, had been of the greatest bene¬ 
fit to the Society—in fact, had done more to 
benefit it than any act of the Council; and to 
these meetings, whether as a competitor or 
not, he would always give his hearty support. 
An instance of the reproduction of bark on 
a braneh of the common Laurel, which had 
been peeled for a distance of 2 feet, excited 
some interest, as physiologists consider that 
the bark when once wholly destroyed cannot 
be replaced by the plant; and the Rev. M. 
J. Berkeley mentioned a similar occurrence 
in the case of an Oak tree, which, after 
having been barked, formed fresh bark and 
new wood from the ends of the medullary 
rays. A curious monstrosity in a Cabbage 
leaf also occupied attention. In this instance, 
from the upper side of the midrib several dis¬ 
tinct pairs of small blades had been produced, 
as if several leaves had become confluent; 
but on examination it was found that there 
was no fusion of vascular bundles, the num¬ 
ber of these being the same as in normal 
leaves, and it was further found that every 
rib was inclined to become proliferous. This 
monstrosity Mr. Berkeley considered likely to 
throw light on the production of double flow¬ 
ers. Mr. Bateman, after bringing under the 
notice of the meeting photographs of Wel- 
lingtonias as seen in their native valleys in 
California, and a section of the bark at least 
a foot in thickness, which had been brought 
to the meeting by Mr. Yeitch, gave a lecture 
on Jonesia asoca, flowering shoots of which 
came from Chatsworth; and mention was 
likewise made of a Camoensia found by Dr. 
Welwitsch in Africa, and figured in the 
u Transactions ” of the Linnean Society. 
This is said to have milk-white flowers edged 
with golden yellow, and as much as a foot in 
length, transcending in beauty those of all 
other African plants. After the meeting 
those present had the opportunity of tasting 
Orchid tea, made from the dried leaves of 
Angroecum fragrans, but very few appeared 
to relish its somewhat medicinal taste. It is 
known by the name of Faham in the Island 
of Reunion, where, as well as in the Mauri¬ 
tius, it is said to be much esteemed as a bever¬ 
age, and it has recently been brought into 
notice by a Parisian house, as having some ad¬ 
vantages over tea. 
On the 19th there was another interesting 
meeting, at which Mr. Bateman gave a lec¬ 
ture on Fremontia californica and the fine 
Orchids that were exhibited. The Fremontia 
being a hardy-flowering shrub scarcely known 
in this country except by name, it may be 
well to reproduce some of Mr. Bateman’s re¬ 
marks. After adverting to the limited num¬ 
ber of yellow-flowering trees and shrubs, to 
which the Fremontia would be a valuable 
addition, he stated that one plant of it had 
been imported into this country about fifteen 
years ago, and that plant, the only one of its 
kind in Europe, was in the possession of the 
Horticultural Society. At Chiswick, how¬ 
ever, it obstinately refused to be propagated 
by layers, cuttings, rodt-divisions, or any other 
means, and when the Society got into diffi¬ 
culties the plant was sold to Messrs E. G. 
Henderson for from £30 to £40 ; but though 
in their nurseries it was passed from propa¬ 
gator to propagator, all efforts to propagate 
it failed, and eventually the plant was killed 
with kindness. Messrs. Yeitch, however, 
having received a few seeds from the native 
habitat of the plant, succeeded in raising 
several plants, some of which were turned 
out of doors to rough it, at Coombe Wood 
and in the King’s Road, and he had seen a 
plant of it 5 or 6 feet high on a wall, and 
which had been there all last winter and the 
winter before, and had triumphantly with¬ 
stood the test. Of the ornamental character 
of the flowers an estimate might be formed 
by the specimens from Messrs. Yeitch’s nur¬ 
sery, and we might, therefore, venture to 
conclude, that we had here a beautiful hardy 
plant. The Fremontia belongs to the na¬ 
tural order Sterculiaceas, and as seen here is 
remarkable for its small leaves; but in its 
native country the leaves are as large as those 
of the Fig tree, and Torrey describes the plant 
as having much the same appearance. It 
must, however, be considered much more 
handsome when covered with its yellow flowers, 
one peculiarity of which is, that they have no 
petals, what are seen being divisions of the 
calyx, or sepals. The plant is found in various 
parts of the northern portion of the Sierra 
Nevada, and is named after Colonel Fremont, 
who at the head of a band of daring men fought 
his way through hostile Indians and took the 
site of San Francisco, and the territory thus 
acquired was annexed to the United States. 
Among the Orchids was a magnificent spike of 
Odontoglossum Pescatorei, exhibited by Mr. 
Anderson, gardener to Thomas Dawson, Esq., 
of Meadow Bank, near Glasgow, having^.bout 
sixty blooms, the first of which opened three 
months previously, and Mr. Anderson’s sys¬ 
tem of watering Orchids with warm water, 
of which an account is given in another page, 
was also alluded to. Several other fine Or¬ 
chids were also noticed by Mr. Bateman, es¬ 
pecially the fine varieties of Cattleya labiata, 
Warneri, Ruckeri, and Pilcheri shown by 
Mr. Rucker’s gardener, Mr. Pilcher. 
On the evening of the same day the Pre¬ 
sident held a brilliant conversazione in the 
conservatory, at which the Prince of Wales 
and about two thousand of the Fellows and 
their friends attended. 
There was also a Show on the 14th for 
prizes offered by the Fellows for special sub¬ 
jects, to which in most classes a second prize 
of half the amount so offered was added by 
the Council. Messrs. Veitch, who took the 
President’s prize for the best nine plants sent 
out in 1865, had Adiantum colpodes, some¬ 
what resembling A. capillus-Yeneris, but 
