292 Linnaan Society. 



an exactly similar insertion in the unimpregnated ovulum ; and 

 in this tribe I am inclined to believe, that in many cases the fora- 

 men of the ovnlum is so close to the umbilicus as to appear ana- 

 tropous, and that it ultimately becomes more distant from the 

 unequal growth of the opposite extremities of the seed." 



The characters of the tribe Sterculiece, and a synopsis of the 

 genera and species belonging to it, complete the article. Of the 

 genera, three, viz. Tetradia, Pterocymbium and Cour tenia, are en- 

 tirely new, as is also a genus of doubtful position described under 

 the name of Micrandra. The whole number of species referred 

 to the tribe is sixty- seven, of which thirty-three are now for the 

 first time described. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINN^EAN SOCIETY. 



Anniversary Meeting. 



May 24, 1 844. — The Lord Bishop of Norwich, President, in the Chair. 



The President opened the business of the Meeting, and the num- 

 ber of Members whom the Society had lost during the past year 

 having been stated, the Secretary proceeded to read the following 

 notices of some among them. 



The deaths among the Fellows have amounted to eight. Among 

 these the first name is that of 



William Allen, Esq., a gentleman more distinguished by his inves- 

 tigations in experimental philosophy than by the pursuit of natural 

 history, and still more by that active and unwearied benevolence 

 which has identified his name with almost every recent effort for the 

 amelioration of the condition of mankind. Of such a man we cannot 

 but feel a pleasure in recording that he was for forty-two years a 

 Fellow of this Society, and that, however occupied in other pursuits, 

 he never ceased to take a warm interest in botanical investigations. 



His business being that of a chemist, Mr. Allen's attention was 

 naturally directed to that science ; and in conjunction with Mr. Pepys 

 he published several valuable chemical papers in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions ' of the Royal Society, of which he became a Fellow in 

 1807. The first of these, " On the quantity of Carbon in Carbonic 

 Acid and on the Nature of the Diamond," was published in 1807 ; and 

 was succeeded in 1808 and 1809 by two papers " On the changes 

 produced in Atmospheric Air and Oxygen Gas by Respiration," and 

 in 1829 by another " On the Respiration of Birds," — subjects which 

 he and his friend Mr. Pepys illustrated by a series of the most deli- 

 cate experiments. 



The only paper contributed by Mr. Allen to our own Transactions 

 was read in May 1805, and contains an account of some experiments 

 made by him on a substance called Dape'che, sent to Sir Joseph Banks 

 from South America by M. de Humboldt, which, although very dif- 



