NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. lit 



■was by no means uncommon for the common morning-glory 

 (Convolvulus piuyureus^ L.) to have three cotyledons. In Coni- 

 ferte the numerical variations were well known. 



Amongst the peach cotyledons was one in which the radicle, • 

 with nnmerous branching fibres, had pushed several inches be- 

 neath the integuments, and coiled themselves about the cot3de- 

 dons. The interest here was, that this had evidently taken place, 

 before the seed had quite finished its growth in the fall, as there 

 were grooves all along the surface of the cotyledons which indi- 

 cated that the}' had rather grown around the fibres, than that 

 the latter had forced their way through after the cotyledonous 

 growth had been completed. 



Mr. Meehan further exhibited two stalks of a Lilium candidum, 

 the common white lily, grown in a greenhouse by Mr. W. C. Strong, 

 of Brighton, Mass., which, instead of the usual flowers, had each 

 terminated in two large seal}' bulbs, one inch, and one and a half 

 inches in diameter, precisel}^ similar to those produced under 

 ground. In the ordinary growth of this lily, the spring leaves, 

 which started from the scales, were broadly ovate, not long and 

 narrow as the stem leaves were, and in these terminal stem- 

 bulbs the broad leaves terminated the scales in the same way, 

 giving the flower-stems a peculiar coronetted appearance. He 

 explained a difference in the bulblets we often find in some lilies, 

 and true bulbs, in this, that bulblets form in the axils of the 

 leaves ; and while the scales of the true bulb were simply dilated 

 and succulent leaf-stalks. They had no axillary buds visible. 

 These axillary buds were, however, really formed, but were ab- 

 sorbed by the leaf structure, as he had shown in past times was 

 the case in Cassia marilandica, when accounting for the gland 

 on the petiole of that plant In the case of the \i\y^ however, the 

 bud, though absorbed, did not wholly lose the power of develop- 

 ment, for though, if suffered to remain on the parent stem, scales, 

 absorbed buds and all, usually died away, yet if these scales were 

 removed so that the matter stored in them was not absorbed by 

 the growing flower-stem, the latent bud in the scale would develop 

 itself into a bulblet, which the next year would become a bulb of 

 the ordinar}' character. It was in this Avay that the lily was now 

 so extensively propagated by commercial florists. 



May 23. 



The President, Dr. Ruschenberger, in the chair. 

 Twenty-eight members present. 



The following papers were presented for publication : — 

 " On the fishes of the Ambyiacu River." By Edw. D. Cope. 

 " Descriptions of new species of fossils from Ohio and other 

 western States and Territories." By F. B. Meek. 



" Contributions to Orthopterology." By Prof. C. Thomas. 



isn.] 



