110 
Professor Bessey described his herbarium cases, which have doors 
that are readily removed entirely, and that he uses for tables by 
placing them upon trestles or flat-backed chairs. 
D. H, Campbell described the germination of Boirychiwn spores 
in so far as his observations had proi^ressed. He succeeded in ger- 
minating the spores by constructing a box in such a way that the 
spores were under ground. 
He also called attention to the crystals in the petiole of Onoclea 
^ J. C. Arthur exhibited specimens of Nepaul barley {Hordeum 
trifurcaiuni) in which the awns take a hood-like development, and 
in this hood additional flowers are found. The structure is very puz- 
zling, as it appears that here a flowering-glume (outer palet of the 
older books) bears flowers towards its upper extremity. 
Dr, Walker, of New Orleans, mentioned a case of degeneracy of 
Indian corn. Kernels of Nebraska corn were planted in a pot in 
New Orleans, and produced perfect fruiting plants only fifteen inches 
in height. 
The officers for the next meeting are John M. Coulter of Craw- 
fordsville, Ind., chairman; J. C. Arthur of Geneva, N. Y., secretary. 
The Chemical Action of Light on Plants, — Professor A. Vogel, in 
a communication to the *' Sitzungsberichte der Munchener Akad- 
emie, brmgs mto prominence the fact that the hemlock plant, 
which yields coniine in Bavaria, contains none in Scotland. Hence 
he coTicludes that solar light plays a part in the generation of the 
alkaloids in plants. This view is corroborated by the circumstance 
that the tropical cinchonas, if cultivated in our feebly lighted hot- 
houses, yield scarcely any alkaloids. Prof. Vogel has proved this 
experimentally. He has examined the barks of cinchona plants 
obtained from different conservatories, but has not found in any of 
them the characteristic reaction of quinine. Of course it is still pos- 
sible that quinine might be discovered in other conservatory-grown 
cmchonas, especially as the specimens operated upon were not fully 
developed. ^ But as the reaction employed detects very small quan- 
tities of quinine, it may be safely assumed that the barks contained 
not a trace of this alkaloid, and it can scarcely be doubted that 
the deficiency of sunlight in our hothouses is one of the causes of the 
deficiency. 
^ It will at once strike the reader as desirable that specimens of 
cinchonas should be cultivated in hothouses under the influence of 
the electric light, in addition to that of the sun. 
If sunlight can be regarded as a factor in the formation of alka- 
loids in the living plant, it has, on the other had. a decidedly injur- 
ious action upon the quinine in the bark stripped from the tree. 
On drying such bark in full sunlight the quinine is decomposed, and 
there are form.ed dark-colored, amorphous, resin-like masses. In the 
manufacture of quinine, the bark is consequently dried in darkness. 
This peculiar behavior of quinine on exposure to sunlight finds 
its parallel in the behavior of chlorophyll with the direct rays of the 
sun. It is wxll known that the origin of chlorophyll in the plant is 
entirely connected with light, so that etiolated leaves growing in the 
dark form none. But as soon as chlorophyll is removed from the 
