ME. G. MUEEAY ON EESEA.BCHES ON CHLOBOPHYLL. 147 



obvious link between tbe temperate and the tropical zones. My 

 sketch has been necessarily imperfect ; but there is yet enough in 

 it to show that on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, and 

 within easy access of our own, there is a region in whose singu- 

 larly interesting flora the botanist may still find ample material 

 for study, and from which, amid scenes of unrivalled beauty, the 

 painter may derive some of his noblest inspirations. 



On the Application of the Eesults of Pringsheim's recent Ee- 

 searches on Chlorophyll to the Life of the Lichen*. By 

 Geoege Mtjbbay, F.L.S., Assistant in the Botanical De- 

 partment, British Museum. 



[Read June 3, 1880.] 



Shoetlt stated, the result of these researches has been to take 

 away from chlorophyll the function ascribed to it of decomposing 

 carbonic acid under the influence of sunlight, and to assign to it 

 the position of a screen for concomitant protoplasm which is now 

 to be considered the active agent in effecting this decomposition. 

 In furtherance of these observations, it was suggested by Dr. 

 Vines (' Nature,' vol. xxi. p. 86) that by the interposition of an 

 artificial chlorophyll screen the protoplasm of fungi or even of 

 animals (see Geddes, " Functions of Chlorophyll in the Green 

 Planarise"f) might be excited to the decomposition of carbonic 

 acid, and to the formation of starch from carbonic acid and water. 

 Prof. Lankester ('Nature,' vol. xxi. p. 559, footnote) objects 

 to this experiment, on the grounds of " the definitely charac- 

 teristic chemical activities acquired by protoplasm in different 

 organisms ;" and suggests as a more decisive trial the same expe- 

 riment with an etiolated plant. While agreeing as to the fair- 

 ness of this suggestion, it yet seems to me that the experiment 



* The researches referredto are " Ueber Lichtwirkung und Chlorophyll-Func- 

 tion in der Pflanze" and " Ueber das Hypochlorin und die Bedingungen seiner 

 Entstehung in der Pflanze," July and November respectively, 1879, 'Monatsber. 

 d. Konigl. preuss. Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin ;' noticed in ' Nature,' vol. xxi. 

 at p. 85, by Dr. Sidney Vines, and at p. 557, by Prof. Lankester. 



t Journ.Roy. Micr. Soc. 1879, p. 161 : abstracted from the Comptes Rendus, 

 1878, vol. lxxxvii. p. 1095. See also Geddes, Proc. Roy. Soc. 1879, vol. xxviii. 

 pp. 449 et seq., " Observ. on the Physiol, and Histol. of Convoluta Schultzii." 



