BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 173 



Raphides in Trillium erectum, var. album — While making a mi- 

 croscopical examination of the parts of this TriUiiun, my attention 

 was at once attracted by the large and well defined bundles of raph- 

 ides to be found in the petals. Putting a portion of a petal between 

 two glass sides and pressing them together until the specimen had 

 been rendered nearly transparent, a power of 450 diameters revealed 

 a beautiful display of these bundl3s. Sometimes three bundles were 

 in the jfield at once and from no field were they absent. They were 

 much larger than the cells of parenchyma among which they were 

 lying, and in fact they did not seem to pay any attention to cell divis- 

 ions but lay across them, covering sometimes as many as 4 cells. 

 The bundles lay parallel with each other, pointing towards the base 

 and apex of the petal in the line of most rapid growth. Some of 

 them were very compact, the needles seeming to be firmly united to- 

 gether, while others were beginning to break up and discharge their 

 crystals, caused no doubt by the pressure and consequent flow of sap. 

 The needles were projected from the bundles at all angles, in some 

 cases pushing each other along and thus gaining quite a distance 

 from their starting point. 



Having examined raphides in many plants I have found none so 

 plain, none so easily obtained as these from the petals of Tnlliuiu 

 erectum, var. album. — J. M. C. 



Estivation of Maiiernia verticillata, L. — One of my pupils. Miss 

 Anna Chace, of Valley Falls, R. I., called my attention to the pecu- 

 liar tiestivation ol Mahernia verticiUata. L., a familiar hot-house shrub 

 of the Natural Order Sterculiace.r. She noticed that of the convolu- 

 tion of the two flowers on a branch, tiie twisting of one was to the 

 right, the other to the left. ]\Iy own subsequent observations confirm 

 hers. I have to add the following notes: 



It will be remembered tiiat the inflorescence is of tiie definite kind, 

 one flower terminating the stem but pendant ; the other axillary to a 

 small foliaceous bract and raised on a longer ])eduncle than the ideally 

 older flower. In point of fact, the two flowers have nearly coincident 

 anthesife. In all cases that I have examined the fx^stivation differs in 

 the two blossoms as Miss Chace observed, but sometimes it is the ter- 

 minal, sometimes the axillary one tliat is dextrorse, the other always 

 reversing the direction. Again I And that of a number of flowering, 

 branches examined, about an equal proportion fall under one or other 

 of the above heads, /. e. sinistro-dextrorse or dextro sinistrorse. I 

 coin terms to express my meaning. In all cases there is a distinct 



