1887.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 1.55 



The following was jaresented for publication : 



"Contributions towards a Synopsis of the American forms of Fresh- 

 Water Sponges with Descriptions of those named by other authors 

 and from all parts of the world.," By Edw. Potts. 



The death of Robert H. Hare, a member, was announced. 



On the Stipules of Magnolia Frazeri. Mr. Thomas Meehan exhib- 

 ited some fresli flowers of Magnolia Frazeri, Walter {M. auriculata, 

 Lamarck), and said that when lie contributed the paper on the 

 "Stipules of Magnolia and Liriodendron" to the Proceedings of the 

 Academy in 18^0, he had not had the opportunity to examine fresh 

 flowers of this species. It was not common in cultivation from the 

 fact that the plants grown rarely produced seeds, and there had 

 been little opportunities to get seeds from its North Carolina home. 

 On his grounds of late years a specimen had annually borne flowere, 

 which appeared very early, following immediately the flowers of the 

 Yulau, and were as large and sweet as that species of China. 



A point made in the paper referred to was that the petals of Mag- 

 nolia were not modified leaves, as the petals of flowers would be 

 broadly stated to be in morphological works but rather modified 

 stipules, in which case the petiole and leaf blade have wholly abor- 

 ted. At the time of its appearance. Dr. Asa Gray, to whose kindly 

 criticisms on this and other papers he had been so often deeply indebted, 

 wrote expressing his interest in the paper, saying that the obser- 

 vations confirmed the views of some German observer, whose name 

 he could not recall, that the j^etals of many flowers were but modi- 

 fied stipules. 



Mr. Meehan had not been able to meet with the name of the 

 author or of the paper referred to by Dr. Gray, or the tenor of the 

 author's views. Indeed his observations and those of the author 

 referred to, must have been wholly overlooked by their co-laborei's, 

 or else the views have not commended themselves to their good 

 judgment. For his own part the subsequent observations of nearly 

 twenty years had convinced him that the petals of most flowers 

 should be considered enlarged stipules or thinly dilated bases 

 of petioles, rather than modified leaves, as we should understand 

 this term. In many species of Roses, especially in Rosa Kamtcha- 

 tica, and Rosa cinnamomea the stipules could be noted increasing, 

 and the size of the leaf blade diminishing on the branch as it ap- 

 proached inflorescence. Often the tips of the sepals would develop 

 to minute leaf blades, and in a few instances he had had seen the same 

 appendages on abnormal petals. Often the stipules, especially in 

 Rosa Kamtcludica, would have the red colors of the petals, when at 

 the nodes immediately below the axis from which the peduncle pro- 

 ceeded. There could be no possible doubt in the minds of those who 

 would carefully compare, and watch for occasional aberrations, that 

 the petals of the rose Avere rather transformed stipules than complete 

 leaves. Precisely the same process of development from stipules to 



