NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 99 



PiMELODUS ANTiQuus. Indicated b}- many fragments of pec- 

 toral spines and fragments of jaws, fonnd with remains of Le- 

 pidosteus atrox^ etc., at the junction of the Big Sand}' and Green 

 Rivers. The size of the species was from a foot to eighteen 

 inclies. 



PiiAREODUS ACUTUS. Represented by a number of jaw frag- 

 ments with teeth found in association with the remains above 

 noticed, at the junction of the Big Sandy and Green Rivers. The 

 dentary bone contains a single closel\' crowded row of long cylin- 

 dro-conical teeth, witliout an^' small ones behind. The shaft of the 

 teeth is straight and not curved as in Amia, but the short conical 

 points are abrupt!}' bent inwardly. The premaxillaries contain a 

 similar row of teeth, but with the points scarcely bent, Xine 

 teeth occupy a space of seven and a half lines in a fragment of 

 a dentary bone, the longest tooth being 2i lines. Seven teeth 

 occupy a space of seven lines in a fragment of a preraaxillary, the 

 first of the series being 3 lines long. 



February 11. 

 The President, Dr. Ruschenberger, in the chair. 

 Thirty-two members present. 



Mr. Thomas Meehan presented an apple, which was borne by a 

 tree at Kittaning, in Pennsjdvania, and which tree never produced 

 an 3^ flowers in the popular acceptation of the term ; but always 

 yielded an abundance of fruit. Mr. M. said there was no novelty 

 in this circumstance, as similar cases had been placed on record ; 

 but the specimen furnished a practical illustration of some mor- 

 phological truths which could not often be demonstrated in the 

 way tliis afforded the opportunity of doing. 



It was admitted that a fruit was a branch with its accessory 

 leaves, transformed. The apple fruit was made up of a series of 

 whorls of leaves comprising five each. Cutting an apple through 

 we found a series of five formed the carpels containing the seeds. 

 Several series of whorls, very much retarded in development, 

 probably formed the stamens, but this could not be well seen in 

 the apple fruit, as they seemed to be almost absorbed in the 

 corolla series. This was the next in order that appeared in tlie 

 divided apple the green curved fibrous line which we find in all 

 apples midway between the "core" and the "rind" is the divid- 

 ing line between the series which forms the corolla, and the outer 

 series whicli forms the calyx. In this tree theio are no pistils, tlie 

 series which usually goes to make up this part of the fruit struc- 

 ture being either very rudimentary or entirely wanting. Hence 

 there was no "core" to the fruit. The result of this want of de- 

 velopment was that the usual calyx basin of the apple was in 



