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164
Correspondence.

was whether it rotated from left to right or from right to left, and in the end there seemed to be an opinion that it depended "upon how you looked at it." In a similar way, if a climbing plant is said to twine from left to right in ascending, different meanings will be found to be attached to this simple statement by different persons. But such indefiniteness would be intolerable, and a clear, precise rule has long been laid down, which if well understood will speedily decide every question of the land. When an object rotates or revolves, its motion must be performed about some central axis, which remains for the moment relatively fixed. Suppose yourself to be this axis, and fix your attention on some particular point of the object. This point will, during some part of its course, pass over your breast if, while doing so, it crosses from right to left, the rotation or revolution is said to be from right to left, and vice versa. The hop and the honeysuckle are said to twine from left to right this means that if you suppose the plant coiled round your own body, the growing point will move from the left to the right hand, in passing over your breast. Similarly, the scarlet runner and the passion flower twine from right to left. The hands of a watch, placed face upwards, turn from left to right, as also does the sun in our hemisphere but in the southern hemisphere he moves from right to left.—W. B. G.

White Varieties of Plants. Perhaps Mr. Mott will be pleased know of another locality for the white variety of Prunella vulgaris. I found it growing near the shores of Llyn Coron, (the habitat of Elatine hexandra and Hydropiper,) in Anglesea, where it was rather plentiful and very showy, it certainly appeared to be a well-marked variety. In Nant Francon occurred the white form of Digitalis, I have also gathered it near Birnam Hill, Perth. The rare white Lamium purpareum may be found in Northants, on the site of Rockingham Forest and some young friends of mine brought me specimens from cultivated fields, near Hardingstone, in this county. Perhaps the most singular albino ever found was Papaver Rhœus, perfectly white, but in other respects similar to the type. On the borders of L. 'Ancresse and the Grand Havre, Guernsey, the white form of Erodium maritimum was prevalent, almost to the exclusion of the ordinary form; and, as Prof. Babington pointed out in the Prim. Floraæ Sarnicæ, the flesh-coloured variety carnea, of anagallis arvensis, is frequent on the Quenvais, Jersey, and L. 'Ancresse, Guernsey. I have gathered white Campanula rotundifolia at Aberglaslyn, at Harleston, Northants, &c., &c. Erica cinerea, white, at Kingsthorpe, Northants; Calluna vulgaris, white, at Harleston, Northants; and Conwyd in Carmarthenshire. One of the most lovely albinos I ever saw was Menzieaia polifolia, which I gathered in Kylemore Pass, Connemara. Geranium Robertianum, var. alb., occurs in Northants, at Rothersthorpe; Scabiosa columbaria on the Downs, between Lewes and Brighton; Carduus arvensis and acanthoides in Northants, at Yardley Gobion; Campanula latifolia, white, at Troutbeck, Westmoreland. In concluding these scattered notes, I might just add that the locality for the white form of Erodium maritimum and moschatum, the sandy shores of the Grand Havre, and portion of the Braye du Valle, Guernsey, was also the habitat for the Silene quinqueculvera, which exhibited there its richest colours and most type-like appearance, and for the variety modestum, of Geranium Robertianum.—G. C. Druce.



Gleanings.


Mosses. We have Mr. Bagnall's second article "On the Study of the Mosses" in type, but are reluctantly compelled to withhold it till next mouth, in consequence of the illustrative plate not being quite ready.