ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 315 



Scutellarin.* — H. Molisch finds, as a result of heating leaves of 

 Scutellaria altissima L. in 1 p.c. hydrochloric acid for a short time, a 

 formation of dendritically hranched or needle-like white crystals on the 

 under leaf-surface ; and that after longer action of 5 p.c. acid on entire 

 shoots yellow sphnsrocrystals are deposited in the epidermis cells. He 

 calls these bodies Scutellarin. The substance can be extracted from fresh 

 plucked leaves by 1-2 p.c. hydrochloric acid solution, is easily soluble 

 in alkalies, and can be precipitated from the yellow ammoniacal solution 

 by hydrochloric acid. The author finds the substance in several species 

 of Scutellaria, and also in Galeopsis Telrahit and Teucrium Chamsedrys, 

 but fails to find it in a large number of common Labiates. G. Gold- 

 schmiedt has analysed the substance and suggests a formula, C 21 H. J0 O 12 . 



Structure and Development. 

 Vegetative. 



The Old Wood and the New. f — D. H. Scott, by a series of ex- 

 amples of fossil genera including Heterangium, Megaloxylon, Lygino- 

 dendron, Calamopitys, Poroxylon, and Cordaites, traces the gradual loss 

 of the old centripetal ly developed wood, the cryptogamic wood of the 

 French palreobotanists. The centrifugal or phanerogamic wood, with 

 its unlimited possibilities of secondary growth, which is insignificant in 

 Heterangium, includes everything except the leaf-trace system in Lygino- 

 dendron. In the leaf where there was not much demand for secondary 

 tissue, the old wood was long able to hold its own, and has persisted to 

 the present day in Cycads and perhaps, in the form of transfusion- 

 tissue, in the Conifers, where it has survived by the help of a change of 

 function. 



Development of Stomata in Conifers.^ — E. Schwabach finds that 

 the development can only be followed for a short time in the spring, as 

 in a few weeks after the first indications can be observed the process is 

 complete, and the stoma-apparatus appears exactly similar to that of a 

 one or several years old leaf. The first indication is found in needles 

 which are still quite enclosed in the bud. The development was followed 

 in transverse sections of Picea, Abies, Juniperus, Larix, and Pinus ; that 

 in Picea is described in full ; a similar development occurs in the other 

 leaves which were studied. The division lengthwise of the mother- 

 cell of the guard-cells, its gradual sinking below the level of the neigh- 

 bouring epidermal cells, the thickening of the walls, and the gradual 

 twisting of the young guard-cells through 90 3 resulting in the formation 

 of the pit above and the upper part of the air-cavity below, are followed 

 in detail and the stages illustrated by figures. Pine-needles afford a 

 very good object for study on account of their relatively large guard- 

 cells, and also from the fact that in one and the same leaf all develop- 

 mental stages can be followed. The earliest stages are found at the 

 base of the leaf, the latest at its apex. The author was unable to throw 

 any light on the mechanism of opening of the guard-cells as he found 



* Sitzungsb. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien, niath.-naturw. CI., ex. Abth. 1 (June 1901). 

 See also Verhandl. k. k. zoolog.-botan. Ges. Wien, lii. (1902) pp. 67-8. 

 t New Phytologist, i. (1902) pp. 25-BO. 

 X Bot. Zeit., xx. (1902) pp. 1-7 (1 pi.). 



