i8 95 . NOTES AND COMMENTS. 371 



A Primitive Lily. 



In the same magazine Mr. Ridley describes as a new genus, with 

 the suggestive name Protolirion, a saprophytic plant collected by 

 himself in the Malay Peninsula. Mr. Groom gives a detailed account 

 of its structure, and also discusses its affinities. " Protolirion," he 

 says, " may be regarded as closely related to the archetype of the 

 Liliaceae, and connecting the modern Liliaceae with the Triuridaceae." 

 This interesting little plant is only three inches high, devoid of 

 chlorophyll, and consists merely of a slender underground rootstock 

 from which rises a simple scape bearing scales, and ending in a few 

 small flowers. As the embryo in the seed shows no differentiation, 

 the evidence for its being a monocotyledon rests on the arrangement 

 of the parts of the flower in threes and on the presence of the nectar- 

 secreting glands in the dividing walls of the ovary, known as septal 

 glands, which hitherto have been found only in the petaloid monocoty- 

 ledons. On the principle that union of parts denotes a later stage in 

 phylogeny as compared with the case where they are free, Protolirion 

 will hardly do for a near relative of the ancestor of the lilies. For 

 while the typical lily has sepals, petals, and stamens, quite free and 

 situated below the ovary, its supposed progenitor has the two former 

 series (perianth) attached at the base to the ovary wall, the three 

 outer stamens are similarly inserted, the three inner rising from the 

 bases of the inner segments of the perianth. The pistil is remarkable 

 from the fact that the lower portion of the ovary is inferior and three- 

 chambered, while above it separates into three distinct portions. 



We are much inclined to doubt the connection between this 

 plant and the ancestral lily. Its saprophytic habit, which, as Mr. 

 Groom suggests, may account for the apocarpous condition of the 

 upper part of the pistil (a point which has to be explained away 

 somehow), may also be responsible for points on which he lays more 

 stress. 



A most commendable feature about the whole thing is the co-opera- 

 tion of the systematist and anatomist to put forward an account 

 which tells us something of internal structure as well as the mere 

 external diagnostic characters to which papers on systematic botany 

 are too often restricted. 



The Action of Light upon Bacteria. 



Professor Marshall Ward is continuing his researches into 

 the nature of the inhibitory action of light upon the growth of 

 bacteria. In the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 

 (1895, P- 961) he describes and illustrates by photographs some of his 

 more recent results. When a pure culture of Bacillus anthracis was 

 grown on a glass plate, to which light was admitted only by the 

 aperture of a stencil-letter, after 24 hours incubation the shape of the 



