a lock or any other impediment; 2d, That while the distance between the oceans by this route is only 131 miles, half that distance is provided by nature with a passage for the largest ships; 3d, The remaining distance requires the removal of bars, excavations, and cuttings presenting no unusual difficulties; 4th, Harbours requiring but little improvement to render them excellent exist at the termini.—Athenæum.

Botanical Society of Edinburgh.

Thursday, June 12, 1856.-Professor BALFOUR, V.P., in the Chair. 1. Elucidation of some Plants mentioned in Dr Francis Hamilton's Account of the Kingdom of Nepal. By Lieut.-Col. Madden. 2. On the Duration of the Life of Plants. By Professor FLEMING. The phrases ordinarily employed to express the duration of life in plants are Annuals, Biennials, and Perennials. Viewing the subject, however, in reference to function rather than seasons, divisions much more consistent with the phenomena must be resorted to. Thus, in the case of annuals, it may happen in an unfavourable season that the plant may outlive the winter, flourish during a portion of the following season, and thus become a biennial. But in many cases those plants termed biennials merely extend themselves during the first season, and in the following flower, ripen their seeds, and perish. But in both cases the plant dies after having once executed the function of reproduction. Those plants have their vitality completely exhausted by the seed-producing process, and, in consequence of this functional character, they constitute a very distinct group, to which the somewhat ambiguous term Monocarpous has been applied by Decandolle and Lindley. It suggests the idea of the plant producing only one carpel or seed-vessel. As defined by Lindley, however, it may be conveniently employed. He says, " Monocarpous, bearing fruit but once, and dying after fructification, as wheat. Some live but one year, and are called annuals; the term of the existence of others is prolonged to two years, these are biennials; others live for many years before they flower, but die immediately afterwards, as the Agave americana,”

In proof that it is the production of the seed which consumes the vitality of the plant, it will be found that by destroying the flower-buds the life of the plant will be prolonged until new flower-buds be produced, or those already existing, but in an imperfect state, become developed. Thus, I have kept the common oat, Avena sativa, for four seasons by cuting off the flowering stem. The annual bean may be easily converted into a biennial. The tree mallow, Lavatera arborea, usually considered a biennial, in one case outlived the greater part of the second winter with me, but perished by the severity of the frost in the spring of 1855, having a stem such as I now exhibit, displaying spurious annual rings of growth, about eighteen in number, marking intermittent action, irrespective of the dead or winter season, and well calculated to give a salutary warning to the vegetable palæontologist.

The circumstance of monocarpous plants having their life prolonged by being prevented from flowering, and the production of new parts for flowering purposes, give no countenance to the assertion of Knight in his paper "On the Reproduction of Buds" (Phil. Trans., 1805, p. 262). Nature appears to have denied to annual and biennial plants (at least

to those which have been the subject of my experiments) the power which it has given to perennial plants to reproduce their buds."

This character of the individual plant being capable of reproduction only once was well known to Ray, who states that such plants may live even to five years, and then adds, "at caule semis edito et seminibus perfectis funditus marescunt," (Hist. Plant., i. 45),

The second physiological group, to which I shall now direct your attention, has this property in common with the preceding, that the stem, after flowering and ripening the seed, perishes, together with the root by which it was nourished. In this respect it may be termed an Annual; and as examples may be quoted the tulip, onion, monkshood, and very many of the plants termed herbaceous. These differ, however, from ordinary annuals, or once-flowering plants, by the production, at the base of the stem of the present year, of a bulb or tuber destined in the following spring to form its own roots, independent of the parent bulb or tuber, now exhausted and dead.

This mode of secondary reproduction or extension is well illustrated by the common orchids, as the common Orchis mascula, where the bulb which is to give rise to the stem and flowers of next season may be observed of a paler colour and firmer texture than the one in the course of being exhausted and ready to die. In the case of the two bulbs of the Neottia spiralis or ladies' traces, Keith, in his System of Physiological Botany, i. 38, states," If a pair of these knobs is taken and separated, and then immersed in water, the one will be found to sink, and the other to swim. This is a phenomenon which seems also to have puzzled the simplists of antiquity not a little, and to have given rise to a great deal of idle and superstitious conjecture. It was thought that the knob that swims must necessarily have possessed some peculiar and potent properties, and accordingly some potent properties were liberally ascribed to it. If prepared in a particular manner, and worn about any one's person, it was believed to have the singular property of exciting, by means of proper management, a violent attachment to the wearer in the breast of any one he pleased. And this belief," he adds, "is still a vulgar error among the ignorant and superstitious."

The group to which we have now referred has been in a great measure overlooked by more recent botanists, although its characteristics were known to Ray, and confounded by them with the group we now proceed to consider.

This third group was denominated by Linnæus Suffrutices, and thus defined "truncis sublignosis quotannis fere supra radicem pereuntibus," Phil. Bot.,74. Lindley has a division of plants which he terms Polycarpous, "having the power of bearing fruit many times without perishing," and a subdivision of this group he terms Rhizocarpous, "or those whose roots endure many years, but whose stems perish annually, as herbaceous plants," (Introd. to Bot., 475.) The modifications of this group exhibit considerable variety of character. The following may readily be distinguished:

1. Where the flowering stem and leaves perish, while the collar and root remain, for the benefit of the buds to be evolved from the former in the following spring, such as the strawberry and horse-radish.

2. Where the flowering stem perishes together with the collar, but where rhizomes are produced with buds of an equally monocarpous character as the parent, as mint.

3. Where the stem, collar, and root perish after reproduction, having previously given rise to a stem with its roots capable of outliving the winter, and producing flowers and fruit during the following season. The common rasp is a good example of this group.

4. Where the whole plant dies after maturing the seed, and forming from the stem a tuber, as in the potato. Here we have an aggregation of flower buds destined to produce individuals with the annual or monocarpous character.

These groups of rhizocarpous plants do not seem to have occupied, to any extent, the consideration of botanists, although, in a physiological point of view, of great interest. The field, indeed, may be regarded as in a considerable degree unoccupied by our botanical writers.

The last great group, in reference to the term of life, denominated Perennial, or, in the phrase of Lindley, Caulocarpous, are those "whose stem endures many years, constantly bearing flowers and fruits, as trees and shrubs." In this group the efforts of life are of two kinds-the production of buds of extension and those of fruit. The fruit, flower, or seed buds resemble in some degree in their function an annual or monocarpous plant. Death follows the reproductive process. It is otherwise with the extension buds. Both, however, are greatly under the influence of external circumstances. An abundant supply of nourishment makes a tree generate extension buds almost exclusively, whereas a scanty supply of food promotes the reproductive efforts, and fruit buds predominate, a process the reverse of that which prevails in the animal kingdom, where it has long been alleged, “sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus" (Horace.)

By many vegetable physiologists it has been supposed that the life of a tree is confined to its buds; that the stem is a sort of dead soil, or rather support; and farther, that the bud, when it evolves in spring, acts like a seed, sending downwards certain vessels to act as roots, and another set upwards, for extension of the individual and the formation of new buds for development in the following season. In this view of the matter, the tree,

with the exception of the buds, is an aggregation of dead cells.

The authors who have adopted this notion have been chiefly influenced by considering the power which buds possess of developing themselves in certain circumstances, even when detached from the stem, as in the act of budding, and even by the more ordinary process of extension by slips. To this view of vegetable life there have ever appeared to me to be grave objections, which, to save the time of the Society, I shall state very briefly.

1. I shall not here dwell on the fact that by particular processes the leaves, stem, and roots can be made to produce buds, or the parts supposed only subservient to vitality can exercise living functions from vital centres, nor on the action of poisons.

2. When a tree is grafted-say a cultivated apple on a crab stock-the buds of the graft may extend into a lofty tree, and yet its downward roots, although becoming continuous, never embracing the stock and reaching the soil. The stock remains the same in its bark, wood, and pith, and, after many years, if it produces buds and suckers, these invariably retain the characters of their crab original. The practice of dwarfing fruit trees would prove a failure if the buds contained the whole life of a tree. A slow-growing stock is selected, on which is inserted a fast-growing graft, or one inclined to generate extension rather than fruit buds. If the buds of the graft annually sent down their roots to the ground, the influence of the stock should cease by the second year, an event which does not occur.

3. The difference between summer and winter felled wood is equally hostile to the notion that the life of a tree is limited in winter to its buds. The cells of the newer layers of wood are storehouses of nourishment: the sap, when beginning its ascent, is nearly pure water; as it ascends it becomes more and more loaded with the contents of the cells through which it has travelled, and the buds are thus supplied with nourishment by the living agency of the former year, which made the bud and provided for its de

velopment. Hence the comparative lightness of timber felled after the bud has evolved its leaves.

The stem of a tree is the common support of all the organs, the receptacle of the peculiar juices, and the storehouse of nourishment. The buds evolve simultaneously or successively according to a law of a symmetry and co-operation, as among the composite zoophytes, giving to the individuals of a species their characteristic expression.

I have to apologize for the desultory character of these brief remarks. I have not met with any satisfactory grouping of all the phenomena to which I have referred in any of the treatises on Botany which I have been able to consult; and if I can induce any one to cultivate the field which I have so indistinctly pointed out, who has more time and better opportunities than I can command, the portion of your time which I have occupied will not have been misspent.

3. Inquiry into the signs of current Electricity in Plants. By H. F. BAXTER, Esq.

(This paper appeared in the number of this Journal for July last.) 4. Notice of some Additions to the Hepatica of the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. By JOHN LOWE, Esq.

5. Records of Localities for Rare Plants. By Professor BALFOUR. 6. Continuation of Account of the Contents of the Museum of the Botanic Garden. By Professor BALFOUR.

7. Notice of the Fibrous Plants of India. By Professor BALFour.

Thursday, July 10, 1856.-Professor BALFOUR, V.P., in the Chair. In taking the Chair, Professor Balfour stated that the painful duty devolved upon him of recording the death of the President, Colonel Maddenan event which took place suddenly and unexpectedly, from rupture of the aorta, soon after last meeting of the Society. "We all, I am sure (he said) deeply deplore the loss of one who took a warm interest in our proceedings, and with whom we have had much pleasant intercourse. For my own part I cannot easily give expression to the sad feelings with which I contemplate this bereavement. He had been a constant visitor at the Garden during the summer while engaged in preparing his elaborate paper on the Indian plants in Dr Buchanan Hamilton's harbarium; and I had looked forward to the pleasure of spending many a happy day with him in the prosecution of botanical science. His amiable deportment and gentlemanly manner endeared him to all of us, and we all rejoiced to see one who had spent a large portion of his life in the active service of the East India Company now devoting his time and leisure to the prosecution of science. During his residence in India he was a careful observer, and made many interesting remarks on the flora of the country. He sent home the seeds of many valuable plants which have flowered in Glasnevin and in other gardens. When he came to settle in Edinburgh, he joined the Royal and Botanical Societies, in both of which he became a very active member. He was elected a councillor of the Royal Society, and took a marked interest in its proceedings. He particularly took charge of the scientific additions which it was agreed to make to its library. To the Transactions of the Botanical Society he contributed an excellent paper on the occurrence of Palms and Bamboos high on the Himalaya, and it is to be hoped that the paper which was read from him at our last meeting will be in such a state as to allow of its publication. Most sincerely, I am sure, do the Society condole with his afflicted widow.

Such events call on us to be ready, seeing we know not what a day may bring forth."

66

"I have also to report the death of Mr William Gourlie, the local Secretary of the Society in Glasgow, who was connected with our Society from its commencement, and who aided it much by his exertions. He was a zealous naturalist, and had made a large and valuable collection of plants, which it is hoped will not be lost to science. From his mercantile position in Glasgow, he was able to render important service to the Society and to botanists on many occasions, and he was always ready and willing to do everything in his power for the promotion of science. During my residence in Glasgow as Professor of Botany, I was much indebted to him, and many specimens now in the Museum here I owe to his kindness. He set an example of zeal to the mercantile men of the western metropolis, and his labours promised to be instrumental in infusing a taste for science among the community of Glasgow. When the meeting of the British Association took place in Glasgow in September last, he acted as chief local Secretary. The labour which he underwent, not merely during the meeting, but for months before, was extraordinary. He spared no pains to render the meeting creditable to Glasgow, and the arrangements which he made called for commendation from all. He was publicly thanked by the Duke of Argyll for his services. About the time of the meeting symptoms of disease of the bones in the face appeared, and the malady went on insidiously and unobserved for many months, till at length it appeared as a fungous growth. He endured at first great suffering, which he bore with much fortitude and resignation; and after a protracted illness he sunk in the course of last week. He has been taken away in the midst of his usefulness, and at the very time when he seemed to be gaining the highest eminence in his native city. The place which he occupied will not be easily supplied. Let us hope that his enthusiastic love of science, and his noble exertions in the cause of Botany, will be the means of stimulating his townsmen to follow his steps; and that, while they are prosecuting their commercial speculations, they will not think it beneath their notice to devote some of their time to science, which was to him in his season of recreation a source of high enjoyment, and which secured for him many friends in all parts of the world. Though dead, may he yet speak to them."

1. A Brief Account of the General Botanical Features of a Hill District in Western India, with the results of a series of Observations in connection with Vegetable Climatology. By JOHN KENNETH WILSON, Esq., Bombay.

2. List of the Botanical Society's British Desiderata, being Plants required for the Distributions during 1856–7.

3. On an Abnormality_in_the_Flowers of Salix Andersoniana. By JOHN LOWE, Esq.

The author referred to Mr Leefe's Observations on Metamorphoses of the pistil of Salix Caprea (Trans. Bot. Soc., vol. i.), and called attention to some observations by himself on Salix Andersoniana, which seemed further to illustrate the morphological changes of the reproductive organs. The gradual change of stamens into ovaries was pointed out by an extensive series of examples, which also served to show the particular parts of the leaf which give origin to the different parts of the essential organs. The anther gradually merging into the carpel, shows that it is derived from the lamina; the pollen appeared to be merely a gemmiferous condition of the lamina; and Mr Lowe believed that the glands of Salix represent the corolla. By regarding the scale as the calyx, we should have the various whorls of the flower complete.