274 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



constructed 12,000 cellules, besides 1,200,000 spores, without any 

 sensible shock or any hurried interior derangement capable of 

 disturbing the mysterious equilibrium that reigns through all the 

 parts of this living body. How great, then, is the prodigious 

 energy which animates the material substance, and which can 

 accommodate itself instantaneously to the exigencies of life ! 

 American Journal of Science, from Chemical News, April, 1867. 



HOMOLOGIES OF THE FLOWERS OF CONIFERS. 



According to Mr. Andrew Murray, the male flowers are mono- 

 petalous and diandrous in the firs and pines, monopetalous and 

 polyandrous in the cypresses and their allies ; the female flower 

 is also monopetalous. The envelopes are supposed to have the 

 following homologies: 1. Outermost envelope or its appendage 

 corresponds in ordinary dicotyledons to the petal ; in conifers, to 

 the bract. 2. Next envelope corresponds ordinarily to the disk ; 

 in conifers, to the scale. 3. First covering of the fruit, ordinarily 

 to the pericarp ; in conifers, the wing of the seed. 4. Second cov- 

 ering of the fruit, ordinarily mesocarp ; in conifers, cellular sub- 

 stance between 3 and 5. 5. Third- covering of fruit, ordinarily 

 endocarp ; in conifers, th*e testa. 



SPONTANEOUS MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS. 



In the " Comptes Rendus " M. Lecoq describes some extraordi- 

 nary vibrations which occurred regularly in the leaves of Colocasia 

 esculenta, so violent as to set small bells ringing which had been 

 attached to them ; the vibrations were from 100 to 120 a minute. 

 The plant was in a hot-house, and free from currents of air which 

 could produce the movements. M. C. Musset, in his observations 

 on this plant, did not notice the movements of the leaves, but 

 noted that during prefoliation the sap was projected from the 

 leaves to a distance of several centimetres through two orifices, in 

 the form of stomata, at the apex of the leaf; 85 drops were pro- 

 jected per minute. Most likely the movements noticed by M. 

 Lecoq depended on the inactivity of the terminal orifices, as he 

 did not notice any projection of sap, the projecting force having 

 thus been converted into a vibrating force. 



THE FUNCTION OF CHLOROPHYLL. 



According to Dr. F. Cohn, of Breslau, the coloring matter in 

 all algee red, blue, green, yellow, or brown contains chloro- 

 phyll, or a closely allied substance. He also maintains that it 

 is contained in all growing plants, as the principal agent in the 

 process of assimilation, acting perhaps in a manner analogous to 

 that which the oxygen-carrying constituents of blood exhibit in 

 animals. The presence of chlorophyll in the lowest forms of 

 plants has an important bearing on the direction of their motion ; 

 they always move toward the light, and, if variously colored light 

 be used, toward the highly refractive actinic rays in preference 

 to the thermal red ones. He believes that the decomposition of 



