138 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB—REPORTS OF
MEETINGS.
(677TH ORDINARY MEETING.)
SATURDAY, 25TH OCTOBER, 1930.
The first meeting of the Winter Session was held in the Physics Lecture
Theatre of the Municipal College, Romford Road, Stratford, at 3 o'clock
on the above afternoon, the President, Sir David Prain, C.M.G., CLE.,
F.R.S., etc., in the chair.
Sixty-seven members and visitors attended the meeting.
Mr. Avery exhibited ten watercolour drawings by Major A. B. Bamford,
comprising views of the Chantry House, Billericay; Broomfield Church
Great Easton Church; the House by the Ford, Great Easton; Hazeleigh
Church; Lindsell Church; Margaretting Church; Tilty Abbey; the Old
Church at Wickham Bishops; and of Chipping Hill, Witham.
Mr. Avery also exhibited the second volume of Benjamin Allen's
"Commonplace Book," which he had recently acquired by purchase from
the executors of the late Mr. Cunnington, of Braintree (who had acquired
it from the late Rev. J. W. Kenworthy). The volume in question was
described in detail by Mr. Miller Christy in a paper read before the Club
in May, 1908 (see Essex Naturalist, vol. xvi., p. 145) and is the com-
panion-volume to one already in the exhibitor's possession, which also
was exhibited.
Miss G. Lister exhibited and gave an account of a rare myxomycete,
Licea pusilla, which she had found on the occasion of the Club's Fungus
Foray on October nth, growing on damp oak-wood in the Loughton
Forest. This species is a new discovery for Essex. She also showed
a copy of Schrader's "Nova Genera Plantarum," 1797, in which the
species is figured.
Miss Lister also gave an exhibit showing various stages in the growth
of the cones in Scots Pine and Cedar. In Scots Pine, the flowers—the male
catkins and young erect rosy female cones—appear in early spring, but
are not mature till nearly the end of May. The cone-scales of the female
flower are then separate from each other, and the abundant yellow pollen
sifts down between them and reaches the ovules at their base. Each
ovule is inverted, having the micropyle, which catches the pollen, directed
downwards. The pollen grain on reaching the nucellus puts out a short
tube, which anchors it to the tissues, but does not then make further
growth; the cone scales soon close up again, their edges being sealed with
turpentine. The little cone, about half-an-inch long, becomes recurved
by the unequal growth of its stalk, but during the succeeding summer and
winter does not increase much in size. In the following spring the green
cones attain nearly their full length, about one inch-and-a-half, but ferti-
lization does not take place till nearly the end of June, thirteen months
after the pollen reached the ovules; indeed the archegonia with their
egg cells that require fertilization have not developed until now. The
ripe seeds are dispersed a year later, when in hot June sunshine the woody
cone-scales may be heard cracking apart and the winged seeds flutter down.
In Cedars the flowers are mature in October; the young green female