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LONDON
Linnean Society, November I.—Prof. Allman, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Messrs. S. M. Samuel and P. Wyatt Squire were duly elected fellows of the Society.—A communication was read by Dr. G. King on the source of the winged cardamom of Nepal. By Dr. Pereira it had been regarded as the produce of Amomum maximum, Roxb.; but this is indigenous to Java. Roxburgh named two Indian species, A. aromaticum and A. subulatum, and Dr. King shows that the latter is the so-called winged cardamom of Nepal, its true habitat being the Morung mountains and not the Khasia hills as asserted by Voigt. —There followed a paper by Capt. W. Armit on Australian finches of the genus Poëphila. Mr. Gould had recognised two birds, P. gouldia and P. mirabilis, as good and distinct specific forms, a statement questioned by Mr. Diggles at the Queensl. Phil. Soc., 1876. Capt. Armit having studied the live birds in their native haunts gives his evidence in favour of Mr. Gould as to the just separation of the said Australian finches, —The self-fertilisation of plants formed the subject of an interesting paper by the Rev. G. Henslow, a notice of which we shall give elsewhere.—Mr. Ed. J. Miers gave a revision of the Hippidea.”This group of the Anomourous Crustacea, although, by their elongated carapace and antennæ bearing considerable resemblance to certain of the Corystoidea, to wit the Chilian, Blepharipoda spinnimana. and Pseudocorystes sicarius, yet the author considers their true affinities to be with the Oxystomatous Brachyura, through the Raninidæ. The Hippidea inhabit all the warmer temperate and tropical seas of the globe. Their life history and habits lately have received considerable elucidation at the hands of Mr. S. J. Smith, of Connecticut, in a study of the development of the common species of the eastern shores of the United States. Their limits are restricted northwards by the cold winters. The H. talpoidea lives gregariously, burrowing in the loose, changing sands near low-water mark. Other species, however, inhabit deep water, such as the Albunea guerinii in the Gulf of Algiers, and &c.—Mr. E. M. Holmes laid before the meeting the late Dr. Hanbury's collection of cardamoms (from the Pharmaceutical Society) in illustration of Dr. King's paper above mentioned; he also drew attention to an undetermined fungus in a sugar cane, which mould had caused the destruction of a plantation in South India. —The Rev. T. H. Sotheby exhibited branches of two remarkable shrubs, Colletia cruciata, Hook., and C. Bictonensis, Lindl., grown in Lady Rolles' garden at Bicton. These South American plants it seems, are not unknown in this country (one Fellow present stating he possessed them now in flower), but the history of their introduction, nevertheless, is a curious one.—Dr. Masters showed an unusual specimen of a grape within a grape, viz., adventitious fruit developed in place of the normal seeds; he also explained the rationale of adventitious tubers producing buds on the root of some examples of Brassica Rapa exhibited by him.—Some twigs and flowers of British grown gum trees were shown by Mr. A. O. Walker, among others Penstemon Clevelandii said to have flowered here for the first time.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 17, 55–56 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/017055b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/017055b0