22 



IJ 



•y 



1858. The mass of information here brought together is very val- 

 aluable, and is not easily obtainable by the ordinary botanist, unless 

 he be in possession of the facilities offered by a very extensive library. 

 The Botanical Gazette for January contains the following notes : 

 '* Catalpa speciosa/' by Dr. Englemann ; ''Tennessee Plants/' by Dr. 

 Gray ; '' Littorella and Schizaea pusilla," by the same, in which it 

 noted the discovery (as already reported in the Bulletin) of these 

 plants in Nova Scotia by our fellow-member, Miss Knight ; ^' Notes 

 on Fungi," by M. E. Banning ; ^'Introduced Plants in Dallas Co., 

 Texas,'* by J. Reverchon ; and, '^ Dimorpho-dichogamy in Juglans 



and Carya," by Thos, Meehan. 



In Science Gossip for January we find a "List of the Local 

 Flowers of the British Islands" ; '* A Report of the Science Gossip 

 Exchange Chib, for 1879 "; " Notes on some of the Smaller Fungi, 

 by G. E- Massee ; and, " How to Double Stain Vegetable Tissues, 

 an article which will prove of interest to those engaged in the micro- 

 scopic study of plant-structure. 



In the January number of the American Journal of Science and 

 Arfs^ Dr. Gray sums up the "Botanical Necrology for 1879." From 

 this we learn that the number of well-known botanists who have 

 passed away during last year is fourteen. The additional note in the 

 February issue, just received, raises the number to sixteen. 



Last year we referred in a brief note to some investigations that 

 had been made by Prof. Church, of England, on *' Vegetable Albin- 

 ism," and in which he showed that albino leaves contain less lime, 

 but more albuminoid nitrogen than green ones, thus indicating a 

 capability for development without actual growth. We learn from the 

 Chemical News that, in a more recent paper read before the London 

 Chemical Society, Dec. 20, 1879, Prof. Church shows that these albino 

 leaves do not perform leaf-functions — that they do not possess the 

 power, even in sunshine, of decomposing the carbon dioxide of the 

 air, but that they add largely to the amount of that gas therein, thus 

 resembling the petals of flowers, and the action of green leaves du- 

 ring darkness. The author also investigated the comparative loss 

 and gain of albino and green foliage when caused to grow under the 

 same conditions. 



A recent number of the Berliner Monatsschrift reports some 

 interesting experiments by Prof. Hoffmann, of Giessen , on the 

 influence produced on the sex of dioecious plants by thickly sow- 

 ing their seeds, and from which he has arrived at the conclusion 

 that sex does not reside in the seed but in the result of the conditions 

 of germination. In spinach, for instance, he found that one hundred 

 seeds crowded in a pot yielded two males to every female plant, but 

 when seeds from the same sample were planted in the open ground 

 they gave an equal number of each sex. Similar results are said by 

 Prof, Prantl, of Aschaffenberg, to obtain in the prothallia of ferns 

 when crowded, and Prof. Pfeffer, of Tiibigen, has observed that the 

 same holds good with Equisetum, more antheridia than archegonia 

 being produced. 



The subject of chlorophyll has been attracting considerable 

 attention lately, and the Journal of Botany notices the recently 



