Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin. 63 



not everywhere perceptible ; in many places, where fortunate sec- 

 tions were made, perfectly transparent and very minute ramified fila- 

 ments in an amorphous substance were evident, of a nature so clearly 

 vegetable, that they need but be seen to be convinced of such being 

 the case. MM. Link and Klotzsch at once pronounced them to be 

 vegetable. Still more doubtful are other less regular and thicker 

 filaments, which are here and there ramified, and are characterized by 

 their inflated margins ; they are also sometimes separated into single 

 ball-shaped bodies. The vegetable nature of the disease is therefore 

 not to be doubted. The mould filaments existing in two places on 

 the confluent disease, which are nowhere else to be found on the 

 hard surface, are evidently something secondary, as so often happens 

 with regard to fungi. The mould filaments have no resemblance 

 with the filaments in the interior of the disease, are thicker, and evi- 

 dently articulated, which M. Deslongchamps overlooked ; in some 

 spots, capitate asci may be seen, whose clavate ends are covered all 

 round with green spores ; they are also found between the filaments. 

 This mould is evidently an Aspergillus. 



Organs of fructification were not perceived in the fungoid bodies ; 

 the latter therefore remind us of the enigmatical Sclerotia : direct ob- 

 servations on the latter, namely, Sclerotium semen, and complanatum, 

 showed however no agreement. Dacryomyces stillatus showed still 

 less resemblance in the structure. 



[The paper of M. Deslongchamps above alluded to appeared at 

 p. 229. vol. viii. of this journal, and we then called the attention of 

 our readers to the observations made by Mr. Owen in 1832, in his 

 Notes on the anatomy of the Flamingo. In a subsequent number 

 (56. p. 131) Mr. Yarrell communicated a notice of the observations 

 of Col. Montagu on the same subject, which were published so early 

 as 1813. All these observers seem to have overlooked the fungoid 

 bodies on which the mould is developed. — Ed. Ann.] 



March 10. — M. Kunth read the first part of a treatise On the na- 

 tural group of the Liliacese taken in its widest sense, in which his aim 

 was to prove, that if the Liliacece, Asphodelece and Asparagece of Jus- 

 sieu are considered as mere divisions of a larger family, there is no 

 reason to retain the Melanthacea and Smilacece as distinct families. 

 With this intention the author first reviewed these five groups, and 

 defined their limits more accurately. The following are the results 

 of the observations communicated. 



The Melanthacea, which are characterized by the anthera extrorsce, 

 divided pistil, and the capsular fruit, possess anatropous ovules. With 

 the exception of Colchicum and Bulbocodium, in which they are he- 

 mianatropous, their embryo is very small, and lies hid in the albu- 

 men directly above the umbilicus ; in Colchicum, Bceometra, and Or- 

 nithoglossum, on the contrary, it is situated about a third of the peri- 

 phery from the umbilicus. This family is divisible, according to the 

 different nature of the anthers, stigmata, and fruit, into five groups, 

 the Colchiceee, {Colchicum, Bulbocodium, Merendera, Monocaryum, and 

 Weldenia and Leucocrinum as doubtful), Melanthece (Androcymbium, 



