118 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



5.20. Corollas now about five-sixteenths of an inch above the others in 

 disk. Pistils and stamens about two lines above the corollas. Long yellow 

 ray petals half open, with no appearance of pollen on their pistils. 



From this time forward there was no further growth of the corolla, so that 

 this portion of the daily labor was accomplished in about three quarters of 

 an hour. 



5.25. Pistils and stamens beyond the corolla . . . l-32d inch. 



5.30. " " ... l-16th " 



5.35. " " ... th " 



5.40. " " " ... fth " 



5.45, 5.50. No change. 



5.55. Pistils begin to project beyond the stamens. The first insect, a sand 

 wasp appears. He inserts his proboscis down between the clavate j>istil and 

 the stamens, carrying away the pollen, which is all over his head. 



6, 6.5. Pistils one line; stamens no longer lengthen. 



6.10. Anthers are falling away from the pistils, which are two lines beyond. 



6.15. No change. 



6.20. The ray petals now fully open, that is horizontal. 



No change was noticed after this, except the free visits of sand wasps; none 

 of these, however, carried any pollen to the pistils in the ray florets. 



About 9 o'clock (there had not been the slightest indications of any growth 

 since 6.20) heavier insects began to arrive, and then the slightest touch broke 

 off the florets, which fell on the ray pistils which happened to be below them, 

 and in this way they were fertilized. These pistils died very soon afterwards. 

 Those pistils on the upper side (the flower leaning a little) were quite fresh 

 the next morning, awaiting some chance to be fertilized, insects, evidently, 

 not performing that office. 



We here see that there were three phases of growth, with a slight rest be- 

 tween each, the pistil taking the most time, then the stamens, and the corolla 

 the least ; hut the whole growth of the day included within two hours. 



I have used the term pistil for the clavate process which occupies the place 

 of the true organ in the ray florets. Of course only the ray floret of Silphium 

 have perfect pistils. This clavate false pistil, or ovary, has hitherto been sup- 

 posed to be a necessary production for the fertilization of the plant. It was 

 supposed to push out the pollen, which was thereby scattered to the ray florets 

 about it. But these observations show that this is probably an error, and 

 that fertilization is chiefly carried on by the easy falling away of the mass of 

 stamens, as I have shown in a paper on Euphorbia Jacquinozflora, in last years 

 Proceedings, is the case with that species. 



I am anxious to call particular attention to the different ratios of growth 

 in connection with the appearance of different floral organs in this plant, be- 

 cause I think I see traces of a general law in plants that there are vibrations 

 or varying intensities during each season's growth, and that the production of 

 various organs depends on degrees of these vibrations. 



Observations on some Fishes new to the American Fauna, found at Newport, 



R. I. By Samuel Powell. 



BY E. D. COPE. 



A number of interesting additions to the ichthyological fauna of the United 

 States having been sent to the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 by our fellow-member Samuel Powell, I place them on record for the conve- 

 nience of ichthyologists. Several of the species, it will be observed, were new 

 to science at the time they were received ; some of these have been described 

 by Prof. Gill. Most of these are of West Indian affinity, some being simply 

 well known species of that region, which have wandered, as has been sug- 

 gested by Gill, along the Gulf Stream, and turned aside on the southern coast 

 of the New England States. 



[Oct. 



