Abstract
LONDON Linnean Society, November 4.—Prof. Allman, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—The session opened by Mr. H. C. Sorby showing drawings of some British sea-anemones, with habitat on the upper fronds of long seaweeds in deep water; and he recorded having seen a solitary cream-coloured cetacean on the English coast.—Mr. Arthur Bennett drew attention to a new British Chara (C. stelligera), remarkable for the presence of stellate bulbils on the stems.—Mr. E. M. Holmes exhibited two marine algse new to Britain, viz., Dasya gibbesii, from Berwick-on-Tweed, and Ectocarpus terminalis from Weymouth; and also species of Callithamnion, with antheridia and trichophore on the same branchlet.—Prof. T. S. Cobbold exhibited a remarkable trematode from the horse. It was discovered by Dr. Sonsini at Zagazig during the Egyptian plague, with which outbreak, however, the parasite had no necessary connection. The worm (Gastrodiscus sonsinonis) appeared to be an aberrant amphistome furnished with a singular ventral disk, whose concavity was lined with about 200 small suckers having a tesselated aspect. In this respect its nearest approach was a worm infesting a genus ot spinny-finned fishes (Cataphractus) belonging to the Triglidæ. According to Prof. Leuckart's recent anatomical investigation, however, doubts are thrown onits amphistomoid affinities.—Mr. G. F. Angas showed the leaf of Hermas giganteæ, an umbelliferous plant of the Cape used as tinder by the Hottentots.—Mr. E. A. Webb exhibited a monstrous bramble (Rubus fruticosus) with flowers represented by elongated axes covered with minute pubescent bract's and apices fasciated.—A communication by Dr. G. Watt was read, viz., contribution to the flora of North-West India. The geographical features of the district are noted. He divides it into three areas: the first range, Ravee-Basin, with magnificent forests of Cedrus deodara on its northern slopes, has on the southerly ones vegetation with an Indian facies, being barely outside the humid influence of the tropical rains of the plains; the second range, comprising Pangi, Lower Lahore, and British Lahore, has a flora altogether changed, dry short summers and snow-clad mountains giving a climate and plant-life of quite a different cist; the third range evinces still further change of flora, this assuming a Thibetan type. Some 300 species of plants are noted, four being new.—A paper on the Papilionidas of South Australia, by J. G. Otto Tepper, was read. The butterflies of this part of Australia are comparatively few in numbers, and sombre colours prevail thus seemingly in harmony with the surroundings of their habitat. The paucity of numbers the author attributes to the dryness of the climate. Notes on the habits accompany the descriptions of the species.—Notes on a collection of flowering plants from Madagascar were read by Mr. J. G. Baker. The flowering plants are less known than the ferns from this interesting island; two new genera are denoted, viz. (1) Kitchingia, belonging to the Crassulaceæ, a succulent herb with fleshy sessile leaves and large bright red flowers in lax terminal cymes; (2) Rodocodon, a liliaceous plant with red flowers and peculiar spurred bracts: it comes between Muscaria and Urginea. Thirty new species are described.—Messrs. Edw. Brown, H. E. Dresser, and T. F. Pippe were elected Fellows of the Society.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 23, 71–72 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023071c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023071c0