





[55] 



i^ucric^ ant) IRcplics, 



[As the Scientific Enquirer is now discontinued, we shall publish in each 

 issue of the Journal such Questions as we may receive, together with 

 Answers to the same contributed by some of our specialists. — Ed.] 



I. — What is the best way to harden the Earth-worm, so that 

 sections may be cut from it ? R. S. P. 



Alcohol, I think, is the best medium. I have never tried to 

 cut sections of earth-worms, but a few days ago I put a large slug 

 in alcohol, and it is now hard enough to allow transverse sections 

 to be cut from it with a razor. If the querist finds any difficulty 

 in cutting after the alcohol hardening, he can easily cut them with 

 a freezing microtome or by embedding in paraffin wax. 



B.Sc, Plymouth. 



2. — What is the best way to prepare and mount specimens of 

 Stigmas to show Pollen-tubes ? S. G. 



The Antirrhinum pistil is a good one to show the pollen-tubes, 

 but it is not in the stigma where they are to be found, but in the 

 style. The greatest difficulty is not in the mounting, but in 

 getting the pistil at the exact time when the pollen is throwing out 

 the tubes. It is best mounted dry on one of the shdes where the 

 cell is made on the glass, or make a cell with a turn-table and 

 Bates' black varnish or brown cement. By dividing the pistil in 

 two halves, it is generally transparent enough to see through ; if 

 not, it can only be teazed out with needles or cut with a freezing 

 microtome. B.Sc, Plymouth. 



3. — How are the Concentric Circles in a transverse section 

 of Beet-root (looking like annual markings in timber) to be 

 accounted for ? R. S. P. 



The well-known concentric rings of wood, broken up by 

 medullary rays, which alternate regularly with the zones of bast, 

 and which number as many as six or more in a strong one-year-old 

 beet-root, are due to an anomalous secondary thickening or 

 growth of the root. This anomalous thickening, which is met 

 with in other plants besides beet, and the process which produces 

 the phenomena that so closely resembles the annual rings in 

 timber, cannot be fully exj:)lained without the use of many botani- 

 cal terms. In the root of the beet, as the growth proceeds, there 

 are differentiated in it strands of wood and of bast corresponding 



