22 
other hand, as they occur so frequently and in such great numbers 
in old cells which are in the process of dissolution, the inference 
here is that they play no part in the nutritive processes of the 
plant. It is somewhat singular that while they were found in 
such abundance in the N¢el/a plants, in all the different species 
of Chara used in the course of these experiments no wimper 
kcerperchen were seen. 
Be: Lo. 
Statistics of the Fertilization of Flowers.—In the “ Verhand- 
lungen des Botanischen Vereins der Provinz Bradenburgh” xxxi, 
1-63, is an article by E. Loew on “ Bliitenbiologischen Statistik.” 
In this he gives the results of his investigations, in which he fol- 
lowed the method of Herman Miller in his work on the fertiliza- 
tion of flowers by insects. 
This method was that of actually counting the visits of insects 
- to flowers, made in such a manner as to secure the fertilization 
of one flower by the pollen from another. Miiller records 10,000 
instances of this kind counted by himself, and by a comparison of 
Alpine flowers and insects with those of north and middle Ger- 
many he reached the following conclusion; that the ancestors 
of certain Alpine flowers, such as Viola calcarata, Rhinanthus 
alpinus, &c., &¢., must have emigrated from Germany into the 
Alpine regions as bee or humming bird flowers; that is, flowers 
adapted to fertilization by means of bees or humming birds, and 
these gradually changed their morphology so as to become butter- 
fly flowers, owing to the much greater number of butterflies in 
that region than of bees or humming birds. 
Loew says of this conclusion, that in the minds of certain 
biologists, Miiller’s keenness of reasoning has caused a distrust of 
his method. of work, therefore it seemed to him important to re- 
peat the work of Miiller under circumstances differing as widely 
as possible from those surrounding the plants studied by the 
latter. This he did by using the same method on plants growing 
in the botanical garden in Berlin, for a series of years. In this 
manner the conduct of insects, similar to those of Westphalia and 
Thuringen, could be observed in regard to flowers of all possible 
origin. The author, after giving several tables showing the num- 
ber of visits as actually counted, says the results confirm the con- 
