a dripping month, there being 3-37 inches of rain, and only 15 dry days. The average temperature was 61·49°. During August we had 4.58 inches of rain, and 13 fine days. The maximum temperature was 64° and the minimum 49°. There was nothing special to note in temperature, &c., for September, October, and November. Fortunately these months proved the most favourable of the year, which enabled farmers to secure their crops, and promoted the maturing of wood and flower-buds upon trees and shrubs. December commenced with severe frost. The thermometer registered 20° on the 4th, but towards the close of the month the weather became dry and mild. On the 22nd there were in flower in the Parks Christmas Roses, Violas of sorts, the Daisy, the Buttercup, and loa annua. were also observed in George Square. days, and the average temperature was 36·29°.

The two last-mentioned There were in all 22 dry

The coldest day of the year was December 4th, when the thermometer registered 20° of frost; and the warmest day July 28th, on which we had 78° in the shade. The average temperature for the year was 48.37°, as compared with 53.39° in 1878. The total rainfall was 30.93 inches, as against 26.18 inches in the previous year.

In summing up with a few general remarks upon the state of vegetation during the past year, I may notice that, consequent upon the severe spring, crops of all kinds were from four to six weeks later than usual. The Christmas Rose, which should have been in flower in December, 1878, only bloomed at the Queen's Park on February 24th; the Snowdrop appeared on March 1st, and the Crocus on the 20th of same month. The Lilac flowered on June 7th, the Laburnum on June 11th, and the Hawthorn on June 16th. Summer, or bedding-out plants, were almost a complete failure, with the exception of Violas; but this remark does not apply to those in the carpet beds, which proved fairly successful. Trees and shrubs made weak and sickly growths, and neither the wood nor flower-buds have been thoroughly matured to withstand the severe winter which we are now experiencing.

Referring to the injury sustained by trees and shrubs during the winter and spring, 1878-79, I am glad to observe that they have not suffered materially in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. The covering of snow which remained upon the ground during the hardest frost afforded partial protection; nevertheless, at Kelvin

grove Park, Bay Laurels were all killed, except Laurus colchicum and rotundifolium. Several Rhododendron ponticum suffered severely, while the hybrid varieties escaped. Aucuba japonica was not injured either in spring, or on the 4th December, when, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, they were frosted to the ground. The following plants were more or less affected by the frost at Queen's Park, viz.:--Pernettya mucronata, Bay and Portugal Laurels, Ribes sanguineum, Cryptomeria elegans, Escallonia macrantha, Double-flowering Whin, Spanish Broom, &c. A number of Japanese Coniferae, planted out, have been found to be perfectly

METEOROLOGICAL RECORD KEPT AT QUEEN'S PARK, GLASGOW, FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS.

March, . 2.75 40 32 16 1.85 49 32 21 2:33 45 30 12

2.26 47 34 18

1:41 44 35 17

9.39

4:45

48

31

4

33

45 34 21 2.25 53 38 19

54 38 22 2.73 60 42 14

1:57 54 37

64 49 13 2.53 67 50 13 6.20 63 48 9

1:30 41 30

23 5.22 52

90 33 28 29 4:47 44 33

30.93 48 37 215 26 18 53 39 225 48:03 53

38 131

hardy. At Messrs. Austin & M'Aslan's Titwood Nursery, which is considerably lower than the Queen's Park, Portugal and Bay Laurels, Sweet Bays, Aucuba japonica, and Laurestinas were considerably cut up. From several newspaper reports it appears that, in the south and east of Scotland, during January, the thermometer, on several occasions, registered a few degrees below zero. Consequently Cedrus deodara, and many valuable Coniferae, were killed outright; and, in various instances, hares and rabbits, in a famished state, stripped the bark off every green twig within their reach. Even the Monkey Puzzle, Araucaria imbricata, did not escape their ravages. In the north and west apparently little damage has been occasioned by frost; but in not a few instances the snow, especially during March, deprived many a noble silver spruce and Scotch fir of its branches, which means slow death. The pecuniary loss sustained throughout Scotland from the effects of wind and weather upon trees is estimated at several hundred thousand pounds.

II.-On Tubers, Bulbs, and Tap Roots, their Functions in the Vegetable Economy. By Mr. ALEXANDER S. WILSON, M.A., B.Sc. Every part of an organism is so intimately related to the conditions under which it lives, that only by the study of such relationships are we enabled to disentangle those complex forces, by the balancing and counteracting of which the stability of any organic form is in nature determined. Formerly, naturalists were too much given to the habit of looking on vegetable structures (and animal ones too, for that matter) solely in their relation to man's wants and necessities. Thus the beauty and fragrance of flowers were conceived to be merely for human enjoyment; fruits were not regarded as means whereby the species of plants were to be disseminated and propagated, but as food for man and beast. Now, however, the truth of the doctrine that no animal or plant ever possesses any structure or habit solely for the benefit of another, is beginning to be recognized, and the further recognition of this truth is, we venture to think, destined to give rise to many interesting investigations.

In the case of no structures, perhaps, has their primary object been more lost sight of than in the case of tubers, bulbs, and taproots. From the high economic value possessed by many of these, they seem hitherto to have been considered only in the light of

their utility-such as their susceptibility of great succulent development under the influence of external stimuli. In the present paper it is proposed to inquire what services they perform to the plant possessing them-what in short is their rôle in the vegetable system, irrespective of the uses made of them by man. Most people doubtless believe that Potatoes and Carrots were made to be eaten; for the present we must proceed upon the assumption that they were not. The present paper is but an extension of a former subject; the considerations here brought forward having forced themselves on me while trying to solve some of the questions which I then mooted, but could not satisfactorily clear up. Some of you will, I dare say, remember that in trying to account for the predilection shown by certain plants for the abodes of man, from the fact that the majority of this class of plants bore the impress of a desert flora, I was led to infer that this peculiarity was due to the indirect effects of man's operations on the soil and climate, tending to render these drier.

*

I pointed out, further, that plants of a succulent habit were characteristic of regions which were subject to frequent drought, and illustrated the superiority of this class of vegetation over grasses for resisting excessive aridity by a reference to Dr. Livingstone's account of the displacement of the grass by ice-plants or succulent-leaved Mesembryanthemums and Crassulas on the Kalahari Desert during a succession of severe droughts. From this consideration we were led to infer that the peculiar liking of the House-leek for thatched roofs might be due to its inability to withstand a damp climate, and to its finding on a roof the needful dryness and sun exposure. There were one or two well-marked instances, however, which I found difficult to trace satisfactorily to this class, but I ventured to suggest that they might be originally shore-plants. One of these was the Dock (Rumex). The tap-root of this plant, however, I have since come to regard as a true index of its history, unmistakably proving it to be a desert or shore-plant; so that the Dock undoubtedly agrees with those other plants that grow near human habitations in this respect that it is highly qualified to withstand drought.

On the authority of Mr. Darwin, many succulent-leaved plants succumb to a damp climate; and this is probably due to the fact that they have on the surface of their leaves comparatively few * Trans. Glasgow Soc. Field Naturalists, 1878.

stomata for the exhalation of watery vapour, which seem to be necessary to plants in damp situations. On the other hand, Mesembryanthemum edule has the additional contrivance of oblong tubers buried deep beneath the soil for complete protection from the scorching sun, which serve as reservoirs of sap and nutriment during those rainless periods which recur perpetually in even the most favoured parts of Africa. Dr. Livingstone, speaking of the region north of the Orange River, where the soil was light-coloured soft sand, nearly pure silica, with beds of ancient rivers containing much alluvial soil, baked hard by the burning sun, says: "The quantity of grass which grows on this remarkable region is astonishing even to those who are familiar with India. It usually rises in tufts, with bare spaces between, or the intervals are occupied by creeping plants which, having their roots buried far beneath the soil, feel little the effects of the scorching sun. The number of those which have tuberous roots is very great; and their structure is intended to supply nutriment and moisture when, during the long droughts, they can be obtained nowhere else. Here we have an example of a plant not generally tuberbearing, becoming so under circumstances where that appendage is necessary for preserving its life; and the same thing occurs in Angola to a species of grape-bearing vine, which is so furnished for the same purpose. The plant to which I at present refer is one of the Cucurbitaceae, which bears a small scarlet-coloured eatable cucumber. Another plant, named 'Leroshúa,' is a blessing to the inhabitants of the desert. We see a small plant with linear leaves and a stalk not thicker than a crow's quill; on digging down a foot or 18 inches beneath, we come to a tuber, often as large as the head of a young child; when the rind is removed we find a mass of cellular tissue filled with fluid much

like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the soil at which it is found, it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named Mokuro,' is seen in other parts of the country where long-continued heat parches the soil. This plant is a herbaceous creeper, and deposits underground a number of tubers, some as large as a man's head, at spots in a circle a yard or more horizontally from the stem. natives strike the ground on the circumference of the circle with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the waterbearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a foot or so and

The