83 



As we proceed eastward from L, L, we find that there are a few 

 of these same plants growing on soil of Tertiary age in the southern 

 parts of the Eastern States ; and it would seem that these species have 

 a tendency to follow the course of the two more recent geological for- 

 mations, throughout their whole extent along the Atlantic coast. 

 Another fact which stands out prominently in this connection, is that 

 not a single one of the above-mentioned plants, growing, as we have 

 seen, just along the edge of the mantle of Glacial Drift is native of 

 Kurope ; that is, they belong to a true American flora, which had its 

 origin in the southern part of the continent. In contrast to which fact, 

 we have another one, equally prominent, and that is, that of the spe- 

 cies of plants growing on the material brought down by the ice sheet, 

 about one-third are common to northern Europe and America, thus 

 pointing to a common origin of each in the territory now occupied 

 by the ice and snow of the Arctic regions. 



N. L. Brixton. 



6 J. Teratology. — Lilium candidtim often has the uppermost 

 flower 5-merous; all that I have noticed this year were so. I have 

 seen 6-merous Sarracenia purpurea^ and 4-meroas Tigridia — the 

 large cuhivated species, {Pavoniaf). D. C. E, 



■ 



62. Botanical News. — Trimen's Jourjtal of Botany for June 

 contains : — A Review of the British Characeae (2 plates), continued, 

 by H. and J. Groves; Remarks on Botanical Nomenclature, by B. 

 Daydon Jackson ; Botany of the British Polar Expedition of 1876-7, 

 by H. C. Hart ; Wilhelm Philip Schimper, by W. Carruthers. 



Tht Botanical Gazette iox June contains the following notes: — 

 Vitality of the Seeds of Serotinous Cones, and Fraxinus quadrangulata 

 hermaphrodite, by G. Englemann ; Notulae exiguae, by A. Gray ; 

 Platanthera bracteata, and Double Thalictrum anemonoides, by T. 

 Meehan ; Cobaea scandens proterandrous, by W. W. Bailey ; Notes 

 on certain Silkweeds, by Edward L. Greene ; Notes from Florida, by 

 A. H. Curtiss ; A Natural Botanic Garden, by J, M. Coulter; Some 

 Plants of Franklin County, Ky., by R. H. Wildberger ; and Notes 

 from Illinois, by H. L. Boltwood, 



The Gardeners' Chro?iicle sisitt^ that at the meeting of the Linnean 

 Society on June 3, a paper was read by Mr. George Murray *' On the 

 Application of the Results of Pringsheim's Recent Researches on 

 Chlorophyll to the Life of the Lichen." Summarizing the results of 

 Pringsheim's labours, the author considered the suggestion of Dr. Vines 

 that, by the aid of an artificial chlorophyll screen, the protoplasm of 

 fungi might be excited to the decomposition of carbonic acid, and 

 contended that this proposed experiment is proceeding naturally in 

 lichens. He pointed out that in these organisms we have the fungal 

 tissues in the body of the thallus, and the chlorophyll screen in the 

 gonidia; and that light traversing the chlorophyll-containing gonidia 

 — often occuring as a dense layer — excites in the fungal tissues the 

 decomposition of carbonic acid. In evidence he adduced the 

 plentiful occurence in the fungal hyphae of starch, or rather lichenin 

 — a substance of the same chemical composition as starch C12H10O10 



