338 NATURAL SCIENCE [November 



capsules. The same phenomenon was seen in Amaryllis formosis- 

 sima. 



In discussing these observations Medicus writes : — " Those plants 

 which have the property of reproducing themselves by roots, especi- 

 ally marked, are most unfortunate in setting seed, although no 

 observer can deny the presence or completeness of the sexual organs. 

 The true cause of this seems to be that these plants expend all their 

 energy in increasing their roots and concentrate their nutritive 

 activities on these parts, and so leave none over to contribute to 

 the formation of seed. Annuals, or plants with a limited existence, 

 on the contrary, for the most part, set seed, because they have little 

 or no power of multiplying by their roots, which decay as soon as 

 the seed is formed, and their allotted span of two to five months 

 passed." Referring again to the complete sterility of Amaryllis 

 reginae, under ordinary conditions, he adds that " scarcely, however, 

 have we separated the inflorescence from its root, and laid it aside 

 without moisture, than it forms large seed capsules, and clearly 

 shows us that these would always be produced if the vigorous root 

 formation did not rob them of all nourishment." 



With the exception that we now regard bulbs and tubers as 

 stem rather than root structures, these words have a very modern 

 ring about them, and plainly show that what we now call correlation 

 between the different organs of a plant was already then recognised 

 by Medicus. One thing is very noticeable about his writings, and 

 that is the charm of his literary style, an item which by no means 

 graces too many of the scientific essays and memoirs of the present 

 day. 



Medicus' paper was written in May of 1790, and in the 

 century which has elapsed since that time both Gesner's original 

 observation and Medicus' re-discovery have been so completely for- 

 gotten that in 1896 Lindemuth published an account of the same 

 phenomena without any idea that it had ever been noticed before. 

 Thus, as Jost's paper in the Bot. Zeit. points out, we have here a 

 fact which has three times been discovered as new, after having 

 been twice completely forgotten. H. Lindemuth {Berichte der 

 deutsch. Bot. Gesell., pt. 7, vol. 14), after describing precisely similar 

 facts to those which Medicus had already set down, using, however, 

 Lachenalia luteola and Lilium candidum as his experimental objects, 

 proceeds to recount some facts which go beyond those which his 

 predecessors had seen. These he embodies in a second paper, con- 

 tained in the same number of the Berichte. On 25 th March he cut 

 off forty inflorescences of Lachenalia luteola, and placed them in 

 water. About three weeks later he noticed that the lower part of 

 the stem which was under water was now curiously granulated. 

 Here and there a granule had become larger than its neighbours, 





