SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS. 
43 
involucres and peduncles being almost or entirely destitute of stellate pubescence. II. ccesiuni from the 
same place, and from Cronkley Scar, has narrow, acute , involucral scales, and usually a large amount 
of stellate down on the peduncles and involucres. H. plumbeum flowers very early (about July), 
while H. ccesium is in perfection, or nearly so, in September. In cultivation the plants become still 
more dissimilar.— Report of Edinburgh Botanical Society. 
Professor Simpson recently communicated to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh the results of 
some experiments relative to the growth of Alpine plants, after having been kept artificially covered 
with snow in an ice-house for many months. Seed and plants, when kept in this way during winter, 
and then brought into the warm air of summer, were found to germinate and grow with great rapidity. 
In Arctic regions the rapid growth of plants during the short summer is well known; and the 
importance of similar experiments being made on the different kinds of grain was suggested. The 
rapidity of the harvest in Canada and other countries, where the cold lasts for many months, seems 
to indicate that if grain was kept in an ice-house during winter, and sown in spring, there might be 
an acceleration of the harvest. The subject is certainly deserving the attention of cultivators.— Ibid. 
[A writer in the Scottish Gardener recommends to try this plan with the Rhododendron nivale of the 
snowy summits of the Sikkim Himalaya: see ante p. 32.] 
The Re-la , or Insect-wax of China has been largely used in China since the thirteenth century, and 
has been occasionally imported into France and Britain for many years past, but its natural history is 
still very imperfectly known. Its chemical properties were investigated in 1848, by Mr. B. C. Brodie, 
of London, who showed that, even as it is met with in commerce, it is nearly in a state of chemical 
purity, and that it most closely resembles cerin, the base of bees-wax. The Pe-la is perfectly white, 
translucent, shining, not unctuous to the touch, inodorous, and insipid. It melts at 100° Fahrenheit. 
It is found adhering to the branches of certain shrubs, whence it is collected yearly in June. It seems 
to be produced by myriads of minute insects, which either excrete, or are changed into, the wax. Dr. 
Macgowan, Medical Missionary at Ningpo. is inclined to believe that the insect undergoes what may 
be called aceraceous degeneration, its whole body being permeated by the peculiar product, in the 
same manner as the Coccus cacti is by carmine.— Report of Royal Physical Society. 
In the village of Gries, four leagues from Strasburg, stands a tree of JEsculus Hippocastanum, 
one of the oldest in the country, certainly dating further back than the year 1680. At a foot 
above the ground it measures twelve feet in circumference. The peculiarity of this tree is that from 
an unknown period it has annually blossomed on one side alone , one year on the west side, the next 
only on the east. The bare half does, indeed, present a bunch of flowers here and there, though 
seven-eighths of the branches are without blossom; but the leaves exhibit a more vivid green hue, 
while those on the flowering half of the tree are of a dull, unpleasant colour.— Flora. 
Those who have paid little attention to the Mosses, can hardly imagine the great variety of beautiful 
forms they present to the enquiring eye; and indeed, excepting the Ferns, there is, perhaps, no tribe of 
plants which look prettier than a collection of these in a dried state, and neatly fastened to small sheets 
of paper. We mention this just now, because a very nice series of specimens of the British Mosses are 
in course of publication, by Mr. F. Y. Brocas, of Basingstoke; and these would form an excellent 
ground-work for those who might wish to begin to collect and study these interesting lowly forms of 
vegetation, and would also furnish materials for those 'who could only find leisure to study—not to 
gather for themselves, The two fasciculi published, containing each fifty species, consist of excellently 
preserved specimens, and, as far as we have observed, very correctly named.—M. 
It appears that the flowers of the Victoria regia evolve a considerable amount of latent heat during 
the period of their development, similar to what has been observed to occur in Caladium and other 
Araceous plants. M. Otto, of Hamburgh, has observed that a thermometer plunged into the Victoria 
flower, at the moment of its expanding its anthers (7h. 11m. p.m.), rose to 21 ~ It., the temperature of 
the house being 17±° R., and that of the tank 161° R. Upon being sunk below the anthers, a gradual 
decrease took place. On another occasion, the temperature of the air being 18° R., that of the water 
16f. and the thermometer at 164° R., in the course of fifteen minutes the latter rose, in the flower, to 
"c\Ni? 
