1897] THE SEED PRODUCTION OF GUT FLOWERS 339 



and was easily recognised as a bulbil. At first these granules are 

 covered by the green epidermis of the flower-stalk, but as they 

 gradually increase in size they burst through this as little white 

 lumps. Microscopic examination shows that these bulbils are 

 always exogenous in their origin. Inflorescences of hyacinth which 

 were cut off close to the bulb and placed in water then had their 

 flowers also removed, so that nothing but the peduncle remained. 

 When examined nearly two months later, it was found that bulbils 

 had developed close to the places where the flowers had been situ- 

 ated. In this case it seems that the food-stuff in the peduncle was 

 first cut off from the bulb, and so travelled towards the flowers, 

 but finding its passage blocked here also by the removal of the 

 blooms, it expends itself in forming bulbils close to their remains. 

 Finally, Lindemuth ends his paper with practical conclusions for the 

 culture of bulbous plants drawn from these experimental data. 



This brief English note has been written in order to call the 

 attention of those into whose hands the Bot. Zcit. does not usually 

 fall to the services which Medicus rendered to plant biology. To 

 glance through the pages of Professor Sachs' History of Botany, the 

 only knowledge that we can gain of this older observer is in a few, 

 scant, depreciating references. Granted that the light of genius did 

 not lead him into the right path in one section of botany (anatomy) 

 we still should not allow the memory of an enthusiastic and careful 

 observer in other departments of the same science to be altogether 

 forgotten, or, worse still, to be alone remembered for the errors into 

 which he fell. Most of us, even to-day, are not always in the right, 

 and this should teach us to " render the deeds of mercy " towards 

 the memory of others who, living at a less enlightened period, some- 

 times went astray with their fellows, and did not rise above their 

 times, but who on other occasions saw things with an " inward light " 

 which was denied to their contemporaries. It is no doubt the ex- 

 traordinary work of Professor Sachs himself and his school which has 

 quite placed in the shadow all older writings upon plajit physiology. 



Eudolf Beer. 



