118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1887. 



In like manner, the terms " deciduate " and " non-decidnate " do 

 not serve to .sliarj)ly mark ofl' groups from each other, but probably 

 rest for their distinction upon the more or less intimate and complex 

 interlocking of the fcetal and maternal membranes during their 

 functional activity. So that in this case again we are dealing with 

 structures and structural conditions differing only in degree but not 

 in kind. The extra thickening of the decidua or uterine mucosa in 

 the extremest type of deciduate placenta, may be regarded as cor- 

 related Avith the restriction, concentration or reduction of tlie 

 placental area and the formation of a decidua serotina. Finally, it 

 is proper to call attention to the fiict that the American Edentata 

 are more specialized as respects their placentation than those of the 

 Old World. The American forms, further, generally agree amongst 

 themselves, except that in the Armadilloes, Milne-Edwards, 

 KoUiker and Von Jhering have observed that, in some species, 

 there may be a number of lletuses invested by a common chorion, 

 on which account, the latter author has supposed that such a com- 

 ])ound embryo is the result of the fragmentation or subdivision of a 

 single egg, a phenomenon of metagenesis to which he has a2)plied 

 the appropi'iate term Temnogeny. 



Sugar in China. At the recent meeting of the Botanical Section, 

 Mr. Thomas Meehan read the following extract from a letter of 

 Miss Adele M. Fielde, a missionary in China. The letter is dated 

 from Swatow. " My attention has lately been called to an error, 

 existing apparently in many minds, concerning the plant from 

 which sugar is made in China. A late consular re])ort from Can- 

 ton says the plant is a species of Sorghum, and in the American 

 Cyclopedia (Appleton, 1863), the article on Sorghum appears to 

 me to convey the same idea. I send you to-day flowers of the 

 plant cultivated very extensively for the sugar in the neighborhood of 

 Swatow, and which is the source of the chief ex])ort of this treaty 

 port. It seems to me no sorghum, but by the description in botanical 

 works, the true Saccharum offi-cinarum. Tell me whether it 

 differs from the plant from which sugar is made in the Southern 

 United States. Propagation is from cuttings, a section of the 

 culm, a foot long, being set out at each i)lanting. This planting is 

 done m February, and is ready to be cut for pressing out the juice 

 eleven months later. In the fourth year the stubble is removed, 

 and new cane is planted. It is not allowed to flower, as the culti- 

 vators say it spoils it for use in sugar making." Mr. Meehan said 

 he could scarcely understand how the idea should get currency 

 that Sorghum yielded the sugar of China, for though the native 

 country of the true sugar cane is unknown, the civilized world is 

 indebted to China for the first knowledge that what we know as 

 sugar could be extracted from the cane. IMaiuifactured sugar 

 from this cane was known in China before it was known in Europe. 

 As for Sorghum, though sugar could be made from it, it had been 

 found so unreliable for that purpose, depending apparently more on 



