BOTANY. 345 



ditions on the growth of plants/' reported, that he believed he had success- 

 fully proved that many species of plants regarded as species by botanists, 

 were only varieties or hybrid forms. Thus, he had produced Avena sativa 

 from Avena fatua, Symphytum officinale from Symphytum asperrimum, and 

 many others. He had not succeeded in producing wheat from any species 

 of JEgilops. 



NEW ENGLAND MYCOLOGY. 



For the last four years Mr. Charles J. Sprague, a member of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, has been engaged in collecting and describing 

 the various species of fungi belonging to New England. The number of 

 spectes thus far enumerated and catalogued in the publications of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History is 678, of which a large number are entirely new 

 to science. 



ON THE PROTECTION OF PLANTS FROM THE FROST. 



M. Boussingault has devoted a long article in the Annales de Chimie et de 

 Physique to the preservation of plants from frost, by filling the air with 

 smoke. This is not recommended on nights when the thermometer at a dis- 

 tance above the soil indicates a temperature below 32, for it would then 

 have no effect, nor on windy nights, for then there is no frost; but it may 

 possibly be found of service in protecting fruit-trees and delicate plants 

 from the late frosts of spring, by which their blossoms are so often destroyed. 



ON THE VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



It has long been a disputed question among botanists, whether the uni- 

 formity existing in the vegetation of different islands and continents having 

 no other communication with each other but a wide expanse of ocean, is ow- 

 ing to a special creation in each instance, or to an interchange of seeds trans- 

 ported from one shore to another by the waters of the sea. M. Ch. Martens, 

 professor at Montpellier, in a letter to M. Flourens, recently communicated 

 to the Academy of Sciences, gives an account of certain experiments he has 

 instituted for the purpose of ascertaining First, whether many kinds of 

 seeds are specifically lighter than sea-water, so as to swim on the surface ; 

 and, secondly, whether, after having undergone the action of sea-water 

 for a certain length of time, they are still in a condition to germinate. With 

 regard to the first question, M. Martens has found that out of a certain num- 

 ber of different kinds of fresh seeds, chiefly of a large size, taken at random, 

 two-thirds will swim on the waters of the Mediterranean, the density of 

 which is 1-0258. To ascertain the second question, M. Martens caused a 

 large box of sheet-iron to be made, divided into one hundred compartments. 

 Ninety-eight of these compartments received a certain number of seeds of 

 different kinds, and the apparatus thus prepared was fastened to a buoy. A 

 large number of minute holes pierced in the side of the box allowed the 

 water free ingress and egress, without any danger of the seeds being washed 

 away. After a lapse of six weeks, the box was taken out of the sea and 

 opened, when, out of the ninety-eight kinds of seeds, forty-one were found 

 completely rotten. The remaining fifty-seven kinds were immediately sown 

 in pots filled with earth taken from a heath. Of these, thirty-five kinds 

 only germinated, including seventeen of those which are specifically heavier 



