280 proceedings of the academy of [1887. 



June 7. 

 Mr. Thomas Meehan, Vice-President, in the chair. 

 Twenty-one persons present. 



June 14. 



Dr. W. S. W. Ruschenberger, in the chair. 



Twenty-five persons present. 



The following papers were presented for publication : 



"On the structure and Classification of Mesozoic Mammalia." 

 (Abstract). By Henry F. Osborn. 



"Notes on the Specific Names of certain North American Fishes." 

 By Carl H. Eigenmann. 



June 21. 

 Mr. Thomas Meehan, Vice-President, in the chair. 

 Twenty-nine persons present. 



Note on Chionanthus. Mr. Thomas Meehan remarked that 

 ChionantJms, L., until recently has been described as having perfect 

 flowers. Of many authoi's to hand Dr. Gray only, notes, in the 

 later edition of his Manual that it is occasionally polygamous. 



It is rather one of those plants that are on the border-land of 

 dicecism which, while having flowers apparently alike on all plants, 

 have impotent anthers with a perfect pistil in one individual, and 

 polliniferous anthers and an imperfect pistil in the other. The plant 

 is therefore actually dioecious, while having flowers apparently 

 perfect. This is certainly the rule. 



There is, however, a great difference in the flowers when critically 

 examined. All authors he had referred to describe the pistil as 

 "emarginate or "bifid." 



This is only the case in what we must call the male plant. (Fig. 1.) 

 In the female it is capitate. (Fig. 2.) The anthers in 

 the male are broadly ovate, barely pointed, thick, and 

 of an uniform eburnean tint, with an abundance of 

 yellow pollen. In the female they are linear ovate, green- 

 ish white with a mucronate, almost awned point, never 

 Fig. I. polliniferous, and usually have more slender filaments. 

 No author seems to have noted the capitate stigma. Probably 



