396 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



hand the inflorescence was reduced in size in the stunted 

 plants, and in extreme cases might be reduced to a single 

 flower. Finally mention may be made here of a recent publi- 

 cation of J. E. Coit and R. W. Hodgson (Univ. California Publ. 

 Agric. Set. 3, 283-368, 1919), who have investigated the shed- 

 ding of young fruits of the Washington Navel Orange. This 

 they find is due to the stimulus given to abscission owing to 

 daily water deficits in young developing fruits. Among other 

 observations they find that in this tropical shade plant the 

 stomata lose their power of movement early in the life of 

 the plant and remain practically closed. As a result trans- 

 piration occurs to a very great extent through the epidermis, 

 and 25 per cent, takes place through the upper epidermis. 

 The orange thus appears to stand in great contrast to the 

 cereals barley, wheat, oats, and rye, in which J. Gray and 

 G. J. Pierce (Amer. Journ. Bot. 6, 131-54, 1919) have shown 

 that the stomata open with light and close with darkness. 

 These observations have been made, however, only with 

 young plants. 



PALEOBOTANY IN 1918. By Marie Carmichael Stopes, D.Sc, 

 Ph.D., Lecturer in Palseobotany, University College, London. 



The reduction in output of Palaeobotanical work due to the 

 war is even more apparent this year than in the previous war 

 years, and the papers published in 191 8 are few. The younger 

 workers who might have otherwise been expected to produce 

 memoirs have nearly all been engaged in some form of " war- 

 work," while not only death, but serious illness has been busy 

 among the elder leaders of the science in several countries. 

 The death of Dr. G. A. N. Arber was recorded in the Annals 

 of Botany (vol. xxxii, No. 128) in a short biography by Dr. 

 D. H. Scott, who concluded by saying : " When he died so 

 prematurely on June 14, 191 8, he left behind extensive unpub- 

 lished manuscripts." 



The number of publications worth note in the current 

 review being so small, the grouping under various headings 

 which has hitherto been followed by this annual survey will not 

 be maintained. 



On the Tertiary palms work symbolic of the later phases 

 of the war appeared in Tokyo by Prof. A. Kryshtofovich, who 

 escaped the terrors of Russia and meanwhile added to the 

 scanty information hitherto available about the Tertiary floras 

 of Japan ("Two Ferns and a Palm from the Tertiary of the 

 Takashima Coal Mine," Jour. Geol. Soc. Tokyo, vol. xxv ; 

 and " Occurrence of the Palm Sabal nipponica, n. sp., in the 

 Tertiary Rocks of Hokkaido and Kyushu," Jour. Geol. Soc. 



