MONTHLY BOTANICAL REPORT.

OWING at one time to the indisposition of the Reporter, and at another to the necessity of noticing other works, our obfervations on the periodical botanical publications have fallen behind hand; we shall now attempt to pay our arrears.

The four last numbers of the Botanical Magazine contain, in Mr. Gawler's department, a white-flowered variety of Iris sibirica as it is here called; we have some doubt, however, whether it be not really a distinct, though a very nearly related, species There is some difference in the form of the internal petals, which are more dilated upwards, and contracted into a narrower claw below; they are likewise less erect and blunter pointed, but whether these differences are constant, we cannot positively decide.-Ornithogalum thyrsoides, drawn from a specimen containing so few flowers as hardly to deserve its name of thyrse-flowering.Lilium concolor, a lily of very modern introduction from China, the country of splendid flowers. Wachendorfia brevifolia differs from birsuta especially, but not solely, in the colour of its flowers, which are singularly lurid.-Amaryllis ornata, here called crimson and white amaryllis, a name certainly not very appropriate to the coloured figure, in which the flowers are striped with a dark purple. Mr. Gawler has seemingly with reluctance renounced his former opinion, that this, and the white flowered amaryllis from Sierra Leone, are the same species; though no cultivator doubts of their being really distinct. In these very natural families, the lines of demarkation, both between the genera and the species, are often so very faint, as to elude the eye of the botanist, or rather the touchstone of his definitions; the differences consisting more in innumerable little points, than in marked botanical characters; yet these points of difference, from their great number, may be equal in value to a few more decided distinctions. It not unfrequently happens, from this circumstance, that the botanist is puzzled to find a difference where a common observer scarcely sees any similarity.— Antholyza biotica, the smaller variety, and Ixia erecta, var. lutea odorata, both stand in the same predicament, though considered by the botanist as mere varieties, the cultivator, who attends more to the tuensemble than to legitimate characters, would not hesitate to decide that they were essentially different. In the latter plant, besides the fragrance of the blossom, which is without feent in the other varieties of the Ixia erecta; the tube of the corolla is Longer in proportion to the limb, the ftigmas are more erect, and the whole plant is far moe robust, than in the white. Amaryllis revoluta is a very fine figure of a species before published in the Magazine from a less perfect specimen. Of Sanseviera Guineensis, and Dracæna ovata, we should have nothing to say, were it not to correct an error of the press, which will mislead the unskilful. The former should have been numbered 1179, and the latter 1180; these numbers being reversed, the name of the one is of course applied to the other. It may be remarked, however, that, Dracæna ovata has never been before described or figured; it was difcovered by Afzelius in Africa.-A pink-coloured variety of Scilla (commonly Hyacinthus) serotina; to make amends for giving us a mere variety, one however which has never been before described, Mr. Gawler has here given us a synoptical table of Scilla, Hyacinthus, and Muscari, considered as one genus, divided, for convenience only, into three.-Narcissus bifrons, before considered by Mr. Gawler as a mere variety of N. calaibinus, but now raised into a distinct species. The author, however, surmises that it may probably be a hybrid production between Jonquilla and calathinus.-Narcissus bicolor, nearly related to N. Pseudo-marcissus and N. italicus, heretofore considered by the writer himself as a variety of P. papyraceus.

We have thought it best to place together the plants belonging to the natural orders of ensate and liliacere, the letter-press to which is written by Mr. Gawler. And, although we doubt not but that, many of the purchasers of the Botanical Magazine are dissatisfied with having so large a proportion of the work, as one half, occupied by these orders exclusively, yet we cannot but express our hearty approbation of the plan. These plants have been more cultivated than most others, and far less understood by botanists, of whom they may justly be deemed the opprobrium. The French botanists have had the same view of the matter, and a very magnificent work in folio has been for some time publishing in Paris on these orders, contained under the denomination of Liliacées. But whoever will take the pains to compare this work with the Botanical Magazine, will at once perceive how much the best botanists are at a loss in this department, and how much more luminous and satisfactory is the information contained in the latter work. We proceed now to enumerate the other plants given us by the editor in Number 264, 265, 266, and 267.-Celastrus pyrocantbus: this is a good draw ing from a remarkable fine specimen which grew in the open air, against a southern wall in the garden of Edmund Granger, esq. of Exeter. Dr. Sims, by shewing how this shrub varies with regard to its foliage, and in being with or without spines, has gone a good way towards reconciling the very contradictory accounts of botanists respecting it.-Trifolium canescena z a plant hardly known to botanists but by Tournefort's name, introduced from Mount Caucasus by Mr. Loddiges Stapelia picta, a new species of a genus so elaborated by the late Mr. Masson. Jacquin endeavoured to convince Linnæus that the natural order of Asclepiade properly belonged to the class Decandria, instead of Pentandria, where he had placed these plants: and more lately, Dr. Smith has asserted that the same are really gynandrous, Both these opinions are controverted by Dr. Sims; who defends Linnæus upon the ground, that all

anthers

anthers consist of two lobes; that these lobes are more or less approximate, and frequently, as in this order, quite distinct. But though the lobes are distinct, Dr. Sims considers them as composing one anther only. With respect to Dr. Smith's remark, Dr. Sims observes, that a perpendicular section of the flower shews that the stamens are not really attached to the true germen, but to certain processes of the corolla; and that these plants do not therefore belong to the class Gynandria.-Epacris pulchella, a valuable acquisition to our list of New-Holland plants, gratifying at once the sight and the smell-Erodium hymenodes, one of the hardy species of Geranium, or more properly Heron's-bill. As Northern Africa is little distant from Europe, so this species, a native of the former country, approaches much nearer in affinity to the European species, than those from the southern extremity of Africa.-Cytisus purpureus: we have some doubts whether this be really a distinct species from Cytisus supinus. Podalyria alba: a hardy perennial, of easy culture, and deserving a place in every extensive collection. Mr. Salisbury has, in the Linnæan Transactions, divided Sophora into several distinct genera, applying the name of Podalyria to the Cape species, which are fruticose. In this Dr. Sims has not thought fit to follow him, although he appears to approve of the division. If Mr. Salisbury's genera should be in future adopted, and the name of Podalyria be applied as he has done, Dr. Sims recommends that of Thermopsis (Lupin-face) for the American species, which are herbaceous, and alike in their habit: Thermos being a Greek name for Lupin, which these plants so much resemble-Two species of Asclepias, the nivea and variegata, both characteristically figured; but the former having only one terminal umbel, hardly represents the general habit of the plant; nor is the snowy whiteness of the nectaries, from which it has its name, sufficiently expressed.-Protea speciosa.—Stapelia elegans.-Nymphæa versicolor, a very fine figure of a new species of water-lily from the East Indies, whence it was introduced by Dr. Roxburgh, and is cultivated with great success at Mr. Vere's, Kensington Gore. This species belongs to Mr. Salisbury's Castalia, and is nearly allied to, though distinct from, N. Lotus.-Viminaria denudata; one of the pretty papilionaceous tribe from New South Wales.-Gloxinia maculata, formerly known by the name of Martynia perennis, and inserted under both names by Professor Martyn in his new edition of Miller's Dictionary. It appears by the observations here made, that the arrangement of this plant, and some of its relatives, according to their natural affinities, has been attended with fome difficulties, which has occasioned the establishment of a new natural order.

The Botanist's Repository, No. 112, contains, what is here called Protea speciosa varietas patens which is undoubtedly a distinct species from the P. speciosa of the Botanical Magazine.-Mimosa pudica; or the sensitive plant. It is here said that its "shrinking from the touch is supposed to be owing to its being strongly saturated with oxygen gas, which it disengages upon the slightest provocation, and its place for a short time is supplied by the atmospheric air." We do not know upon the authority of what experiments this supposition is founded, nor do we see how the hypothesis can account for the phenomena at all satisfac torily. Protea abrotanifolia varietas odorata; a good figure of a very elegant little shrub, the more valuable as its flowers are fragrant.-Monarda punctata a very beautiful species from the collection of Messrs. Whitley and Brame, worthy of cultivation, but far more uncommon than some of the less ornamental species.-Passiflora perfoliata from the collection of the Comtesse de Vandes. Wildenow describes the segments of the calyx as being shorter by half than the petals; while in this drawing both parts are equal.

No. 112 contains a very fine figure of Cucumis Dudaim, from the collection of Aylmer Bourke Lambert, esq. This plant says the author was named Dudaim by Linaæus, "from the fantastical idea that it was the fruit mentioned in the Bible by the name of mandrake, with which Jacob's neglected wife purchased her husband's favours for one night of her rival." Now whether Linnæus supposed the fruit of this species of melon to be the real Dudaim or not, the name was very properly applied, because some learned men had imagined it to be so, for however fantastical," it was no new idea of his And in our opinion there has been no more probable guess made amongst all the "fantastical ideas" that have been entertained upon this subject; for the objection that Hiller, who imagined the mandrakes were cherries, made to it, that Dudaim is used by Jeremiah for a vessel (or in our translation a basket) containing figs, may be explained fully as probably as his notion that they were bowls turned out of the cherry tree. For Dudaim might perhaps be as general a word as gourd, and we know there are gourds no bigger than oranges, and others so large that capacious vessels are made of them. The fruit of the Cucumis Dudaim is a beautifully striped round meloy or gourd, admired for its very fragrant smell, and is probably a native of Syria, which is much more to the purpose, than whether it be of Egyptian origin or not, Egypt not being the country of Jacob. Pascalia glauca of Ortega, a native of Chili, from the same collection. Hermannia fiammea of Jacquin's Hortus Schoenbrunensis, a native of the Cape, taken at. Mr. Knights in the King's Road, the possessor of Mr. Hibbert's late collection. species of Lopezia, the coronata native of South as the next (Hypericum virginicum) is of North America.

A new

In No. 114 we have Lobelia assurgens, a very scarce plant communicated by A. B. Lambert, esq. from his stove at Boyton, where it is remarked that the flowers died away without producing seeds, which perhaps might be owing to its being treated with too much warmth,

being

being according to Swartz a native of the colder regions of the mountains in Jamaica. To the successful cultivation of plants, a knowledge of the elevation at which they occur is fully as necessary, as that of the latitude.Volkameria angustifolia, supposed to be a native of the Isle of France, communicated by Mr. Donn, eurator of the botanic garden at Cambridge. In habit this shrub appears to approach very near to the simple-leaved jasmins.-Zingiber Chiffordiana, so named in honor of Lady de Clifford, an amateur of botany and collector of Curious and rare plants.-Pancratium amanum. The author says that this plant is certainly distinct from P. caribæum, but as far as we can judge from the figure, not by any means a good one, it is a mere variety; and was brought by Lord Seaforth from the West Indies under the latter name, and presented to Mr. Lambert in whose stove it flowered in March 1808. -Periploca africana, a rare plant which flowered at Messrs. Whitley and Brame's Old Brompton, industrious cultivators of rare plants from every part of the world, and obligingly communicative of their treasures to inquiring botanists.

Our limits will not permit us to proceed further for the present, we are obliged therefore to postpone the consideration of the two latter numbers of the repository to another opportunity, when we shall also again take up our account of the English botany, of which we are several numbers in arrear.

DURING the whole of this month the weather has been perfectly feafonable, particularly when we confider the tremendous fall of rain that we had during the month of January, and nearly till the middle of February. The farmers, who, about fix weeks ago, were making fad forbodings refpecting the failure of the corn crops of the enfuing feafon, are now perfectly satisfied that the country at large has fuftained very little injury. During the laft two or three days of the month the wind has been easterly, and very cold. Hitherto this year we have not had any violent gales, if I may except thofe in the month of january: in the prefent month we have had none whatever; To that I hope we may for once escape the tempests of the vernal equinox.

March 1ft. A falmon was this day caught, which weighed two and twenty pounds. It was one of the finest that has been remembered for many years, as taken fo early in the feafon.

March 4th. Rooks are beginning to prepare their nefts.

The fallow begins to thow the yellow anthers of its catkins. The whitlow-grafs, (dra. ba verna) in flower on the fides of dry gravelly and fandy banks. Yew trees are in flower. March 10th. Curculio niger crawls about the walls of old bu ldings. The jumping spider (aranea scenica) is feen on the funny walls and pales of gardens and fields.

I have, in the courfe of the prefent month, picked up on the fea beach a great many hard ftones, that are perforated to the depth of about the eighth of an inch, in narrow and femewhat oblong holes. I am at a lofs to conjecture by what fpecies of animal thefe could have been formed No shells were found in any of them, and hid they been the work of fome minute kind of teftacea, fuch or fragments of fuch, would certainly have remained. If any of your correfpondents are poffeffed of information on this fubject, it would be an acceptable fervice to the fcience of natural history, to lay it before the public in your Magazine. March 11th. Pheasants are heard to crow.

The Cancer fagnals is to be feen in the fplashes on gravelly parts of the roads; and in the fame places the hair or whe worm is moving about in its flow and tortuous manner. Melee proscarabeus, Chrysomela tenebritosa, and Chrysomela coriaria, crawl about in the hedge bottoms. March 20th. Two white rats were killed this day. They bad each red eyes, as is common in all the white varieties of the murine fpecies. What is by no means a ufual occurrence in a county fo far fouth as Hampshire, a perfectly white weezel has feveral times been obferved about the premises of a farm yard in the neighbourhood from which I am writing. The field crickets, (Gryllus campestris of Linnæus) begin to open their holes on the fides of funny banks, and to come out of them in the middle of the day, when the heat of the fun is moft powerful. An obferver may fee one of them at the orifice of each hole if he approach gently and with great caution; but they run in on the leaft alarm. They have not yet began to chirp, or creak, as it is called in fome parts of this county; nor perhaps will they be heard to do this till about the beginning of May.

Crows, magies, wood-pigeons, as well as numerous kinds of fmall birds, are occupied in forming their nefts.

I am informed that a foffil tortoise or turtle in a very perfect ftate, has lately been dug out of the ground, upwards of fixty feet below the furface, at Swannage in Dorfet hire. March 30th. Afpesimen of the warty lizard of Pennant (lucerto paluftris of Linnæus),

was

was this day brought to me, which had been found, along with feveral others, in fome bugdles of thatch that had lain near a pond fince the latter end of autumn. The animals had taken shelter in thefe as a retreat for the winter. I have never before feen any of thefe animals in this gravelly neighboured; and although I am informed that there are alfo frogs in fome places, yet it is more than Ax years fince I faw one here.

The flower-buds of the black or floe thorn, begin to appear and feveral of the wall-fruit trees are in bloom. The easterly winds and frosty nights have however greatly checked the progrefs of the latter.

In the last week of this month a very large salmon was caught by an angler, with an artificial fly. The river trout, as well as the roach and dace begin to feed, and play about the furface of the ftreams and rivers.

Hampshire.

MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

THE check which the young wheats have received during the present month, has been extremely beneficial in preventing the over luxuriance which the fineness of the preceding month had caused in all those which had been put in at an early period. It has likewise had a good effect on those which were late sown, which on the whole look well. In England and Wales, Wheat averages 91s. 10d. per quarter; Barley, 44s. 11d.; and Oats,

32s. 6d.

The badness of the weather, and the snow which has fallen in many parts during this month, has much retarded the business of the field, in different situations, much less seed-grain having been got into the ground than would otherwise have been the case. In many places the lands have been so soaked and saturated with water, that it has been quite impossible to Sow them.

The grazing stock of all kinds, has, however, gone on well, as much food had been produred by the warmth of the weather in March. Grass Lamb is just getting plentiful in the country as well as town markets. The prices of all descriptions of fat stock however still keep up.-In Smithfield Market, Beef fetches from 5s. to 63. 4d. per stone of &lb.; Mutton, from 6s. 4d. to 6s. 8d.; and Pork, from 6s to 7s.

There are plenty of Potatoes for setting this season; but the extent of land which has been planted with them this month, has not been nearly so great as usual, probably from the badness of the season.

The business of repairing the fences, and of dressing and rolling the grass lands, has in many places been well performed.

In Smithfield Market, Hay fetches from 51. to 61. 10s. per load; Clover, from 61. 10s. to 71. 16s. and Straw, from 11. 14s. to 11. 18s.

METEOROLOGICAL REPORT.

Observations on the State of the Weather, from the 24th of March, to the 24th of April, 1809, inclusive, Four Miles N.N.W. of St. Paul's.

The quantity of rain fallen since our last report of it is equal to 5.32 inches in depth. The average heat of the month is little more than 42°, nearly the same as it was for March. Four or five weeks since, the Spring was looking remarkably forward; it is now exceedingly backward. The frost has more than once been very severe, and the ice from half an inch to an inch thick. On five or six days we have had snow; but the fall on Thursday and Friday, the 20th and 21st, was deeper than we have ever known it so late in the season.

The average height of the barometer for the month has been 29.54; of course we have had much rain. Our readers will remember that we anticipated rain, at the time we closed our last report: the barometer led to the expectation, but we had a very small quantity till the beginning of the month. On the 14th, we had a violent thunder-storm, accompanied

with

with large hail-stones, which cut every thing to pieces in the garden. This, we have reason to believe, was partial; at Islington and Highgate it was slight, in comparison of what was experienced at Holloway, where the weight of a cloud seemed to rush down with tremendous

violence.

We can reckon hut seven or eight brilliant days out of the thirteen; and on sixteen we have had rain, snow, or hail; and on the 11th was a violent hurricane, that brought to the ground the newly-built nests of the rooks, which, as yet, are wholly undefended by the opening leaves.

The wind has blown chiefly from the Easterly quarters.

According to our Correspondent in the Isle of Wight, the average temperature for the first three months of the present year is as follows:

January, 40-22
February, 45.00

March 43 nearly.

This account was taken at Shide,

near Newport.

ASTRONOMICAL ANTICIPATIONS.

The new moon, or change, will be on the 14th, at four minutes past twelve, noon; and the opposition, or full moon, on the morning of the 29th, at 18 minutes past eight. On the evening of the 28th will take place another occultation of the star y in the constellation of the Scorpion, by the moon, and is the last of this star that will be visible in Great Britain, for several years. The immersion will be at the eastern side of the moon's disk at 41 minutes past ten, apparent time; and the star will emerge from behind her western edge at 54 minutes past eleven, after been occulted 1h. 94m. At the time of the immersion, the star will be four minutes, and at the emersion three minutes, to the north of the moon's centre. At the time of the above phænomenon the clock will be 3 minutes 7 seconds behind the sun dia!. The planet Herschel or Georgium Sidus will be above the horizon almost the whole night. On the morning of the 1st, he sets at 43 minutes past four, five minutes after sunrise, on the morning of the 16th, at 44 minutes past three; and on the morning of the 31st, at 45 minutes past two. On the 1st he may be found with the telescope 4° 53′ to the west in longitude, and about 7 minutes to the north in latitude, of the bright star in the balance named a. On the 16th their difference of longitude will be 5o 30', and of latitude 7 minutes; and on the 31st their difference of longitude will be 6o 3', the star being still about 7 minutes to the south of the planet. Saturn will be a fine object for observation this month. He will be in opposition to the sun, or, which is the same thing, in his perige, on the morning of the 22d at four o'clock. The quantity of his retrograde motion for the month will be 2o 4'. On the morning of the 3d, he will come into conjuction with the v in the Scorpion, a star of the fourth magnitude, when their difference of latitude will be 32 minutes, the star being to the south, and on the morning of the 23d he will be in the same longitude with the B, a star of the second magnitude in the same constellation, the planet in this instance being 1° 3′ to the north. Jupiter will be a morning star, rising an hour or two before the sun. Mars will be up in the evenings. Till the 20th his apparent motion in longitude will be retrograde. He will be stationary in 8° 54' of the anastrous sign Libra, 1° 24′ to the west of the y in the Virgin, a star of the third magnitude. For the remainder of the month he will move direct, or according to the order of the signs. Venus will be an evening star till the 24th when she becomes a morning star. Her inferior conjunction happens on the morning of the 24th, at 40 minutes past seven. On the 1st her elongation from the sun, will be 50° 14, on the 4th 27° 22′, on the 7th 24° 2′, on the 10th 20° 17', on the 13th 16° 25', on the 16th 12° 5′, and on the 19th 7° 35'; after which she will not be readily seen with the naked eye, on account of her then near approach to the sun. The telescopic appearance of this planet will be extremely interesting this month. On the 1st, she will resemble the moon when she is about 34 days old, or more correctly, like the moon when she is 414 degrees from the sun. Till her inferior conjunction, the quantity of her illuminated disk which is turned to the earth will rapidly decrease. About the middle of the month she will become a very fine crescent, similar to what the moon puts on, on her earliest appearance after a conjunction with the sun. Mercury, for the three first weeks, will be too near the sun to be observed without the aid of the telescope. On the evening of the 25th, about an hour after sun-set, he may be seen nearly in conjunction with the northern horn of the bull, a star of the second magnitude, named likewise B, their difference of latitude being 3° 29', the planet being to the south. On the 22d Mercury sets at 12 minutes past nine; on the 25th, at 32 minutes past nine; on the 28th, at 48 minutes past nine; and on the 31st, at one minute before ten. That singular star in the head of Medusa, characterized by the Greek literal B, may be observed twice at its least brightness; viz. on the morning of the 13th, at 51 minutes past two; and on the evening of the 15th at 40 minutes past eleven.

Errata-In the Astronomical Anticipations for April, Line 3, for south," read north; line 27, for maritine," read matatine: line 53, for "between 3 and 4 degrees," read between 2 and 4 degrees.