i894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 331 



Reid, who came upon a number of the fruits on a newly-exposed 

 portion of the beach at West Wittering, near Selsea, in West Sussex, 

 and who has since seen it at Hengistbury Head in Hampshire. More 

 than fifty years ago, James Scott Bowerbank, the founder of the 

 genus, described a number of species from the London clay at 

 Sheppey ; these are of various sizes, from that of an almond fruit 

 upwards, but are all smaller than the specimens now in question, which 

 closely resemble those found, often enclosed in concretionary nodules, at 

 Schaerbeek and Woluwe, near Brussels. The only living representa- 

 tive is Nipa fvuticans, a dwarf palm confined to the brackish estuaries 

 and sea-board marshes of India and Malaya as far as Borneo, New 

 Guinea, and the Philippines. The fruits are borne in large heads, 

 and when ripe drop into the water, where they may float for some 

 time. It is of interest to note that many of the fossil fruits are much 

 bored by Teredo, showing that they also floated before becoming 

 water-logged. 



Anatomy and Plant Classification. 



We would refer our readers to last month's number of the 

 Journal of Botany for an able review, by Mr. C. B. Clarke, of the 

 recently-issued volume of De CandoUe's " Monographise Phanero- 

 gamarum," vol. viii., comprising the Guttiferae, and the work of 

 Julian Vesque. A novel feature is the wholesale use of anatomical 

 details, special importance being assigned to the histological characters 

 of the leaf. As the reviewer observes, the anatomical structure of 

 leaves is rapidly altered by the environment, moisture, shade, and 

 warmth. Hackel, a most painstaking and competent worker, could 

 make no use of it in the grasses. Anatomical, like all other characters, 

 have a variable value, and " are only one among a large number of 

 other characters at least equally entitled to weight. Therefore, 

 anatomical characters are not to be given a superior value, and to be 

 allowed to swamp all other considerations, any more than the number 

 of the stamens. There is no reason to suppose that the anatomy of 

 the leaf is a better clue to the affinity of the plant than the position of 

 the ovule." Mr. Clarke refers to Dr. Palla's revision of the genus 

 Scirpus, where the attempt at a classification on a single character, the 

 anatomy of the stem, has brought together plants from the whole 

 range of the large tribes Cypereae and Scirpeae, which, though other- 

 wise very different, display similar stem-characters. Happily, Mr. 

 Vesque has not done this. His characters from leaf-anatomy are strictly 

 subordinated to the general weight of all other characters, and " the 

 utmost that can be said against the anatomical method, as introduced 

 by Mr. Vesque, is that it makes his book 15 per cent, heavier than it 

 otherwise would be ; it does not make it more troublesome to find 

 other matters." 



An instance of the limits to the use of anatomy in the classifica- 



