20 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



entomologists, that the honey bee uses its mandibles, at least on some 

 occasions, as weapons of attack, quite as much as the sting; this 

 would also corroborate the exactness of Mr. Thompson's observations. 

 — A. S. Packard, Jr., in Aw. Naturalist. 



Bursting of the Fruit of Euphorpja corollata. — Mr. E. E. 

 White, of Lincoln, Iowa, has noticed the bursting of the pods of 

 Euphorbia corollata, with a report loud enough to be heard across an 

 ordinary room. An entire plant had been brought into the house 

 with the view of saving the seed and the reports soon took place. 

 This note is given not so much with the idea that this bursting is peculiar 

 to Euphorbia, but that it may call out similar observations and thus 

 group them together in a tangible shape. — Prof. Wm. C. White. 



Charac.^. - For the benefit of several subscribers who have express- 

 ed a desire to know something of the structure and position oi characce, 

 we take from B. D. Halsted's paper upon the "Classification and De- 

 scription of the American Species of Characeie" the following de- 

 scription : 



The members of this distinct group of Cryptogams are all filamen- 

 tous, submerged, aquatic plants, to the naked eye either green or 

 ashy gray in color, depending- upon the presence or absence of a 

 calcareous incrustation. The plants are attached by a long, colorless, 

 root-like structure to the muddy bottom of the pond or stream in 

 ^vhich they grow, and often f )rm dense masses varying according to 

 tne species from a few inches or two to three feet in height. They 

 are remarkable for their large thin-walled cells and the cyclo^is of 

 their contents. 



In number there is something over a hundred species. 



Development: — At the upper end of the spore there is first produced 

 by division a thin-walled, hemispherical shaped cell. This cell soon 

 divides into two by a cell-wall parallel to the longer axis of the spore. 

 Both of these new cells increase in size and push themselves out be- 

 tween the separating ends of the fine enveloping spirals, one turning 

 downward to become the primary rhizoid, the other upward to form 

 the proembryo. The proembryo, the upper portion of which is green, 

 consists of but a few alternating nodal and internodal cells. When 

 the Chara plant develops, one of the disc shaped nodal cells divides 

 up first into two, and afterwards, by successive divisions, into a num- 

 ber of cells, the largest one of which becomes the initial cell, or punc- 

 tum vegetationis of the future plant. From this cell by further growth 

 and repeated cell divisions the Chara plant is developed. 



Antheridia [globules) : — These, the male organs, are situated on the 

 leaves and are often of an orange color, and from .50 to .75 mm. in 

 diameter. The wall consists of eight cells called shields, closely 

 joined by their serrate edges. The four basal ones are somewhat 

 four sided ; the upper four triangular. From the center of each 

 shield-cell there projects into the interior of the antheridium an ob- 

 long cell called the manubrium. Each manubrium is surmounted bv 



