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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



BOTANY. 



Alternate Dehiscence of Anthers.— In 

 reference to a paper on "Alternate Dehiscence of 

 Anthers," in March number of Science-Gossip, I 

 wish to say that I believe the flowers of Geranium 

 pratense to afford an example of the phenomenon 

 described. It is some years since I observed the 

 plant, but I remember noticing that all the anthers 

 did not ripen at once, and that as they ripened they 

 changed their position. — M. E. Pope. 



Pitcher-plants and Creeping Insects.— At 

 a recent meeting of the Linnean Society, Dr. Maxwell 

 Masters brought forward a specimen example of a 

 pitcher-plant {Nepenthes bicalcarata) from Borneo, 

 and he read a note thereon from Mr. Burbidge. It 

 seems these "pitchers are perfect traps to creeping 

 insects, by reason of the incurved ridges round the 

 throat of the pitcher. To get safely at the prisoners, 

 a species of black ant ingeniously perforates the 

 stalk, and tunnelling upwards, thus provides an in. 

 road and exit to the sumptuous fare of dead and 

 decaying insects contained in the reservoir. The 

 remarkable Lemuroid {Tar sins spectrum) likewise 

 visits the pitcher-plants for the sake of the" entrapped 

 insects. These it can easily obtain from the 

 N. Rafflcsiana, but not so from N. bicalcarata, where 

 the sharp spurs severely prick if the animal dares 

 to trifle with the urn lid. 



The Rose of Jericho.— The figures of the " True 

 Rose of Jericho," engraved at p. 57 of Science- 

 Gossip for last month, are those of Mesembryanthc- 

 mum tripolium. This species, which is undoubtedly 

 that referred to by T. E. Amyot, is a native of the 

 Cape, and the dried fruits are not unfrequently to be 

 seen exposed for sale in shops in London, especially 

 at the East End, being no doubt brought by sailors 

 as curiosities on account of their hygrometric proper- 

 ties. Mesembryanthcmum nodiflorum has similar 

 properties. T. E. Amyot will find a reference to 

 this habit of the fruits in Lindley and Moore's 

 " Treasury of Botany," article " Mesembryanfhe- 

 mum" p. 738, also in Smith's "History of Bible 

 Plants," p. 73.— John R. Jackson. 



" Respiration of Plants."— Sachs, in speak- 

 ing of an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, certainly 

 means free oxygen. The proportion of carbonic 

 anhydride is about one part in two thousand five 

 hundred parts of atmospheric air, therefore, prac- 

 tically, this compound might be considered as absent 

 from any enclosed quantity of air that might be ex- 

 perimented upon, or at least the quantity would be 

 so small as not to allow of the plant giving off any 

 appreciable quantity of oxygen after having taken in 

 the carbonic anhydride. The process of respiration 

 continues during the life of the plant, and is as little 



dependent on light or darkness as it is in the animal 

 kingdom. An experiment proving the process of 

 respiration during darkness is as follows :— place a 

 growing plant in a bell jar, the atmosphere of which 

 contains a known amount of oxygen and no carbonic 

 anhydride; after remaining, say, twelve hours in 

 darkness, it will be found that a certain amount of 

 oxygen has disappeared, and the presence of carbonic 

 anhydride can be easily demonstrated. Plants only 

 absorb their atmospheric food when the conditions 

 are favourable for its immediate assimilation or diges- 

 tion, and this can only be effected under the influence 

 of light, and as this absorption of carbonic anhydride 

 and the consequent giving off of oxygen under the 

 conditions mentioned is so much in excess of the act 

 of respiration, it becomes a matter of difficulty, except 

 by very accurate experiments, to demonstrate the 

 latter phenomena during daylight. The carbonic 

 anhydride given off by germinating seeds is not the 

 result of either assimilation or respiration, but is due 

 to metastasis, or the changes of composition of certain 

 compounds before they can be used by the embryo 

 as its first food. It does at first sight appear anoma- 

 lous that plants breathe out their own food, but a 

 moment's reflection shows that it is an act common 

 to all organisms ; the members of the vegetable 

 kingdom are so constituted as to be able to utilise 

 the refuse of their own substance at first hand. The 

 high specialisation of most animals has rendered them 

 powerless to derive their full amount of nourishment 

 from gaseous food, but when their breath has been 

 solidified by plants then it becomes directly or in- 

 directly their food. I trust the above may throw light 

 on some of the points mentioned by Colonel Dickens. 

 — G. E. Massee. 



Ranunculus ophioglossifolius (Vill.).— This 

 plant has not, I may inform your correspondent, been 

 detected in Jersey since 1865 or 1866, and is, I fear, 

 with Isnardia palustris, irrevocably lost to the 

 Channel Islands. Mr. Piquet, of St. Helier's, kindly 

 presented me with one of the last genuine specimens, 

 gathered by him in June 1866, and though St. 

 Peter's Marsh still abounds in boggy and treacherous 

 ground, still the whole character of the place is changed 

 from what it was formerly, and I am quite assured 

 that the most careful search will prove fruitless for 

 any except the common marsh plants. Ranunculus 

 flammula and R. hirsutus grow there plentifully 

 -the former often with small flower-heads, which 

 might deceive the uninitiated. I am afraid that before 

 lorn- Ranunculus c/ucrophyllos will also be a thing 

 of the past. Last June I observed only ten or twelve 

 roots, and I would exhort botanists not to take a 

 single root, as it spreads rapidly by means of its 

 tubers— the seed not ripening in this country. The 

 late Dr M. M. Bull showed me a large patch of it in 

 his garden at St. Saviour's Road, St. Helier's which 

 had extended from two or three roots originally intro- 



