340 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



beginning of October it was about ten feet high, and by the 



lGth it had increased nearly eight feet, or at the rate of 



about six inches per day. After this date, with a much 



lower temperature day and night, the rate of growth was 



much slower. 



Exhalation in Lichens. 



According to Godlewski, lichens, or at least JBorrera cili- 



aris (the one employed in the experiments) in darkness use 



up all the oxygen of the air, and exhale carbonic acid ; and 



they form no other gas until there is available oxygen. The 



intensity of respiration increases with the temperature. In 



twenty -four hours they will appropriate about their own 



volume of oxygen, when subject to a temperature of 62.6 



Fahr. 



Vitality of Grain. 



At the meeting of the Linna3an Society on January 18, 

 1877, R. Irwin Lynch exhibited a pot of growing wheat 

 sprung from grain left in Polaris Bay, Smith's Sound, 80 83' 

 N. lat., by the American Polaris Expedition. Captain Sir 

 G. Nares, on his return from the recent Arctic Expedition, 

 in a letter to Dr. Hooker, mentions that the grain in question 

 lay exposed to all the rigorous and intense cold of that far 

 northern clime, through the years from 1872 to 1876. Nev- 

 ertheless, when the sample brought home was sown at Kew, 

 about sixty-four percent, of the grains were capable of germi- 

 nation. Two peas were also found to be in good condition. 

 It is likewise worthy of remark that among the wheat a 

 single grain of maize was observed ; and this representative 

 of a tropical vegetation retained its vitality in spite of the 

 low temperature, and was among the seeds that germinated. 

 This observation as to the retention of the vitality of seeds 

 is valuable as an authenticated record that the severest 

 arctic frost, even long continued, does not wholly deprive 

 the embryo of the above cereals of its vitality {Brit. Jour. 

 Bot., April, 1877). 



Fluorescence of Calycanthus. 



A decoction of the bark of the Calycanthus floridus, also 

 known as " sweet shrub," is strongly fluorescent. My atten- 

 tion was recently drawn to this fact in examining a mixture 

 of the bark in glycerin, which I had prepared in order to 



