40 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



sporangium (or in a sporangium in general) ought not to surprise 

 us in the case of an ovule. Now it is certain that in Isoetes, the 

 sporangia stand on leaves, in Selaginella and Lycopodium in the 

 axil of the leaf, in Psilotum and Tmesipteris (as Gobel has lately 

 pointed out) at the apex of a leafy axis. All these genera belong 

 to the same circle of relationship, and also to the very one from 

 which the Coniferae have descended. The variations therefore serve 

 to strengthen rather than to weaken our position. To be sure, we 

 must give up the notion that the ovule represents either a leaf-seg- 

 ment or a bud, or has been derived from a metamorphosis of one of 

 these two structures; it is the macrosporangium inherited by the 

 phanerogams from the higher cryptogams, but more or less trans- 

 formed and taking on, like that, a structure sui generis. It can be 

 compared to an outgrowth ("emersion 11 ),but it must not be regarded 

 as the exclusive privilege of leaves, or as exclusively axial. The 

 ovule may take its origin like other outgrowths from one organ, or 

 another, or at the limits of the two (that is, in the axil of a leaf). 

 This is plainly so in Coniferas, as we have seen, and is the case in 

 Angiosperms beyond a doubt." A minor question is incidentally 

 discussed in the paper and again treated of in a subsequent pamphlet 

 by the same author (Ueber Bildungsabweichungen bei Fichtenza- 

 pfen, Berlin, 1882). Monstrosities in the scales of fir cones had 

 been adduced by some writers as evidence that the seed-scales are 

 not simple but compound structures. A re-examination of the 

 specimen used in support of this theorj^ and a study of other new 

 examples have served to convince Professor Eichler that the car- 

 pillary "scale is a simple organ, but that by the appearance of a bud 

 on the posterior aspect, it may undergo all kinds of deviations, and 

 even split into two or more often three leaf-like lobes. 11 — G. L. 

 Goodale. 



GitllODSis. — Baillon in Bull. Soc. Linn., Paris, no. 38, p. 304, 

 states that besides wild specimens of G. specularioides, the herbar- 

 ium of the Museum at Paris has specimens raised from Texan 

 seeds in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, which show that the 

 capsule dehisces by triangular "panneaux" below the calyx; where- 

 fore the genus subsides into Specidaria. Now GitJtojJsis is unknown 

 in or near Texas, and has never been raised in the Cambridge Gar- 

 den. Specidaria Lindhe/'meri is Texan and has been cultivated 

 here. It appears that Baillon has taken this for Gdhopsis. — A. 

 Gray. 



Notes on Ambrosia trifida. — Last year I made quite exten- 

 sive researches as to the facilities presented by weeds for the dissem- 

 ination 'of seeds, hoping thereby to gain a true insight into their 

 nature. The results show that an explanation is not to be sought 

 here, but in their tenacity of life when injured, their power of "de- 



