SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS. 
131 
flowering bulbs of that description. Add to these Pancratium maritimum, and a good collection of 
the various coloured Hyacinths, and the list will afford a selection of plants calculated to make a grand 
display up to the end of June, and then to give place to store plants and annuals. The list might be 
much extended, but I offer a selection of the best.—C. 
-4- 
SCIENTIFIC GLEANINGS. 
t VARIETY of Orchis mascula, supposed to be the O. speciosa, Host, has been found in the county 
of Wicklow, by Mr. D. Moore, of Glasnevin. This plant was discovered last year, and again 
this year in the county of Wicklow. Koch makes it a variety of O. mascula, which it probably ought 
not to be separated from, the difference being more in appearance than in well defined characters. It 
is, however, a noble-looking plant, growing nearly eighteen inches high. Some of the flowers in the 
rachis are imperfect, wanting the labellum, which would appear to be characteristic of the species. 
Mr. Moore does not find good characters to distinguish it from O. mascula, though it differs so widely 
in general appearance. In regard to the Orchis, Mr. Babington remarks that he does not concur in 
the opinion that it is the O. speciosa of Host. “ I believe it,” he writes, “ to be nothing more than a very 
luxuriant state of the O. mascula. A few days since I found two specimens, exactly corresponding 
with the Wicklow plant, in the wooded part of the Devil’s Ditch, in the county of Cambridge. They 
possess the remarkable size of Mr. Moore’s plant, and the rather acuter segments of the perianth, such 
as he finds on his specimens. The true O. speciosa (which is itself only a variety of the O. mascula), 
has very much more attenuated segments of perianth. It is figured by Reichenbach in his recent ela¬ 
borate volume upon the Orchidacese (forming Icon. FI. Germ., vols. 13 and 14), and I have lately re¬ 
ceived a plant which is much more like it than is the Irish plant, from Mr. Keys of Plymouth. Our 
English O. mascula is noted by continental botanists as an obtuse-petaled form of the species. Mr. 
Moore’s plant is far nearer to the continental type of the species.” 
It appears from Goppert’s excellent investigations, that “ all the Amber of the Baltic comes from 
a coniferous tree, which, judging from the remains of its wood and bark at different ages or stages of 
growth, seems to be a peculiar species, approaching nearest to our white and red Pines. The Amber 
tree of the ancient world ( Pinites succinifer) was far more resinous than any conifer of the present 
period, the resin being deposited, not only as in our present trees, within and upon the bark, but also 
in the wood itself, following the course of the medullary rays, which, as well as the cells, are still 
distinctly recognisable under the microscope ; and large masses of white and yellow resin are some¬ 
times found between the concentric ligneous rings. Among the vegetable substances inclosed in 
Amber, there are male and female blossoms of native needle*-leaved trees and cupuliferae; but dis¬ 
tinctly recognizable fragments of Thuja, Cupressus, Ephedra, and Castanea vesca, intermingled with 
those of Junipers and Firs, indicate a vegetation different from that now subsisting on the coasts and 
plains of the Baltic.”— Humboldt’s Costnos. 
The Ficus Benjamina is very remarkable for the profusion of roots, which it throws down from its 
branches. These, when they reach the ground, become secondary stems, as in the true Banyan tree. 
Those who wish additional facts to prove that the wood of exogenous trees is formed by bud-roots, 
have only to look at one of these trees to be fully convinced of the truth of this beautiful doctrine. 
The main stem of some of them, indeed, I may say of all, does not form one solid mass, as usually 
occurs in other trees, but is a congeries of thick branching roots, which come down from the lower 
ends of the large branches, surround the original shoot or stem, and overlay each other in such an 
open reticulated manner, that daylight can often be seen through a trunk several feet in diameter. It 
is also curious to observe that the long, horizontal, main branches of these trees have not the conical 
shape, or at least not so much, as those of the other trees. What is the cause of this ? The explana¬ 
tion is very simple. The roots which are sent down from the buds, between the bark and the pre¬ 
viously formed wood, in place of reaching the lower part of the branch, are thrown out along the 
course of it in masses, which resemble enormous horse-tails, and hence the necessity, which the 
