Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/131
Furze-leaves Trifoliate.—The seedling furze (Ulex) has, at first, no spines. The young stem is clothed with leaves from twelve to twenty in number; these are shortly petiolate and trifoliate, consisting each of three small elliptical hairy articulated leaflets. When the stem becomes five or six inches in length (usually), the trifoliate leaves cease to be developed, and spines are then produced. We thus see that in Ulex the perfect leaves appear during the early period of the plant's development, while in the Australian leguminosæ, their production is delayed till the maturity of the plant. Ulex, however, is truly a plant with compounds trifoliate leaves, not simple-leaved, as stated in many works.—Professor Lawson, in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin.
Botany at the Cape.—The Rev. Dr. Brown, Colonial Botanist at Cape Town, has recently addressed a circular to the missionaries in South Africa, beyond the Cape Colony, calling upon them to procure collections of plants, and forward them through him, or direct, to Europe, so that the vegetation of that portion of the world may become better known. A letter from the same gentleman, containing further particulars of that singular plant, the Welwitschia mirabilis, has also been printed and circulated.
Notes on Irish Plants.—1. Barbarea intermedia.—This species I inserted in my Flora of Belfast as B. præcox. Mr. G. More, F.L.S., a few days since, suggested to me the probability of its being B. intermedia, which he was the first to discover in Great Britain, in the county of Armagh. On comparing the Irish plant with B. præcox and with a French specimen of B. intermedia, its affinities with the latter were at once obvious. This species first occurred to me, in 1862-63, very sparingly about Belfast, but in several localities. During the spring of last year it occurred in profusion on the borders of fields and on railway-banks, on the light sandy soils of the valley of the river Lagan, from Derriaghy to Hillsborough, especially along the line of the new railway from Lisburn to Hillsborough. From Hillsborough it rapidly decreased in numbers; but a few stragglers I had now and then met with as far west as Bainbridge. Its diminution in this direction is to be accounted by the fact that a few yards west of Hillsborough the underlying rock is an argillaceous slate-rock, or a slaty shell.
2. Rubus Kœhleri.—A batch of Belfast rubi, sent to me, and collected by my late companion in the field, Mr. S. A. Stewart, were kindly named a few days since by Professor C. C. Babington; he makes the following note on one specimen:—"Corylifolius Kœhlerii, alone is new to the country." The locality yielding this new species is Carmoney, situated 3½ miles to the north-east of Belfast, or the slopes of the Belfast hill range.—Ralph Tate, F.G.S.
Preservative Power of Ferns.—In corroboration of your correspondent H. M.'s statement respecting the superior preserving quality of the bracken fern over straw, I may mention that the country people in this part of Somerset thatch over their potatoe "buries" with it, saying that they keep better under it than when straw is used. Ferns possess a volatile oil and resin, to which "the peculiar odour" noticed by H. M. is probably due, and which most likely makes them distasteful to insects, &c., though I well remember one afternoon last summer watching a hive-bee industriously using its proboscis on the young shoots of the bracken, and viewing it through a pocket magnifier, I found it sucked the moisture exuding from the young stems of the undeveloped fronds. The larvæ of Hepialis velleda (swift moth) feeds on the roots of this fern. Our Exmoor ponies crop its young fronds with avidity, and donkies also eat them and other common ferns. The young fronds of ferns are sometimes attacked by caterpillars when cultivated in a green-house, and I have found a white grub banqueting on the dried fronds of Scolopendrium vulgare in my herbarium. Ferns in tropical climates are said to contain a greater degree of nutriment, while the medicinal qualities are not so great as in those of temperate regions. In India, New Zealand, &c., several kinds are used as food, and it is possible that the ferns of these countries may be more tempting to the insect tribe than they are with us. Hugh Miller in his "Testimony of the Rocks" says, "The thickets of ferns which cover our hill sides scarce support the existence of a single creature," which, I believe, is a true statement; but perhaps it is hardly correct to infer from this, that the luxuriant ferns which formed the earliest terrestrial flora of these islands were equally unfavourable to the support of animal life: they doubtless resembled in their qualities the ferns of tropical climates; and it would be interesting to learn from the observations of naturalists in those climes, what insects and other animals feed upon them. In Frémont's "Journey to the Rocky Mountains" he relates that their horses and mules feed upon Equisetum hyemale, and in another part he speaks of their animals luxuriating on "prêle," that is, Equisetum, commonly called "horse-tails," allies of the fern genus. In the "Botanical Chart" of my lamented friend Miss Warren it is states, "that in the north of Europe starch is made from the roots of Osmunda, and bread from those of the bracken, and that in the times of Henry the Sixth the people of England were reduced to the use of this bread."—J. Gifford.
Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame.—Longfellow.