THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 163 
question of determining fossil plants from the impression of 
leaves, and said that even with living plants it was impossible in 
many instances to determine the generic rank by leaves alone. 
December 4th.—The President in the chair, and a good at- 
tendance. A letter from the Australian Forest League asking 
for affiliation was, after discussion, referred to the Council for 
decision. Mr. D. G. Stead then gave a fine lecture on Malaya, 
coastal and inland, illustrated by lantern slides. Miss Lippmann 
exhibited a case of Hawk moths (Sphingidae). Mr. Mackerras 
a case of flies, illustrating mimicry and divergence in the Diptera 
many of the harmless flies exhibited: having a marked resemblance 
to wasps and robber-flies. Mrs. Jenkins Castanospermum. aus- 
trale in flower. Miss Winter Cordyceps Robsoni on caterpillar 
from N.Z., also corals and molluses from Fiji. 
Fascration 1x Diarranis. At the November meeting, the 
Hon. Secretary, Miss Le Plastrier, exhibited a flower spike of 
foxglove (Digitalis) which she had grown in her garden at Lind- 
field, and by experiments extending over four flowering’ seasons, 
Le., eight years, had arrived at an approximation of the ratio 
of variation. he first seedlings were found growing on a bank, 
being from seed that had blown from a garden, the young plants 
were ill-nourished and not many of them survived, but of those 
which did a small number, two or three only showed signs of 
fasciation. The seed of these was not collected, but allowed to 
scatter, the seeds of the others being removed. That flowering 
was in 1917. The next flowering was in 1919, when about one 
in four of the plants fasciated, and in two cases two side blooms 
showed signs of separating the petals. In the flowering of 1921, 
this was even more marked, while in the specimen exhibited 
there were two flowers, one on each side of the flattened axis, 
and at the same level, which had separated their petals into two 
large rosaceous ones, while eight stamens were developed. The 
flowering of this season (1923) showed almost an equal number 
of fasciated plants, but, as fewer had been allowed to reach the 
flowering stage, this may not be reliable. The specimen was 
cut from a stalk of three, and a half feet high, the flattened axis 
measured over two inches, and was so thickly covered with 
flowers that no part of the upper axis was visible except at the 
very top. 
