538 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



BOTANY. 



GENERAL, 



Including the Anatomy and Physiology of Seed Plants. 



Cytology, 

 including Cell-Contents. 



Occurrence of Mitochondria and Chondromites in Plant Cells.* — 

 Fr. Meves finds in the tapetal cells of young anthers of Nymplum alia 

 long, irregularly wound, tolerably thick threads, which stain a deep 

 black with iron hsematoxylin. He regards these as identical with the 

 chondromites, the term used by Benda for the thread-like aggregations 

 of microsomes or mitochondria found in certain animal cells. He is of 

 opinion that the filaments will be found to be generally distributed in 

 plant-cells. 



Scent of the Orange Flower.|— E. Charabot and G. Laloue find 

 that the petals contain the greater part of the essential oil of the orange 

 flower. During flowering the weight of oil is sensibly increased ; hence, 

 contrary to what occurs in the leaf and the stem, the formation or 

 accumulation of scent products in the flower is more active when the 

 organ is fully developed than in an earlier stage. The authors also give 

 details of the chemistry of the process. 



Structure and Development. 

 Vegetative. 



Comparative Anatomy of Japanese Cucurbitacese. % — Atsashi 

 Yasuda has studied the anatomy of various organs of fifteen genera of 

 this family, which are found wild or are cultivated in Japan. The 

 stems bear four kinds of trichomes, sharp-pointed and blunt conical 

 trichomes, and short- and long-stalked glandular trichomes. There 

 are four types of distribution of the sieve-tubes in the stems : vascular 

 bundle sieve-tubes, ectocyclic, endocyclic and commissural sieve-tubes ; 

 all four types are found in GucurUta Pepo. Melothria japonica and 

 Gymnostemma cissoides have long, thick rhizomes, bearing at several 

 nodes three scales which are anatomically distinguished as a shoot, a leaf 

 and a tendril. The rhizomes are full of starch-grains ; the collenchyma, 

 sclerenchyma and fibro-vascular bundles are much reduced. There are 

 generally six fibro-vascular bundles in the hypocotyls, except in Citrullus 

 vulgaris and Cucurlita Pepo, which have twelve and ten respectively. 

 GucurUta Pepo is singular in having a many-layered epidermis in the 

 leaves. The much enlarged epidermal cells on the lower face of the 

 blade in Momordicd Charantia contain globular cystoliths. 



* Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., xxii. (1904) pp. 254-6 (1 pi.). 



t Comptes Rendus, cxxxviii. (1904) pp. 1513-4. 



J Journ. Coll. Sci. Imp. Univ. Tokio, xviii. (1903) Art. 4, pp. 1-5G (5 pis.). 



