1885.] ON DEVELOPMENT OF BIFOLIAE SPURS. 331 



efforts in the good work on that account. The fact is, that the 

 attack was made on purely political grounds, and because the ' 

 Forest Service is apt to be regarded in France, by advanced 

 Bepublicans, as a remnant of the old Court and Imperial system of 

 government. The people who conducted it care certainly nothing 

 for the forests, and but little for the national welfare, beyond that 

 of their own political section. 



Above all, it is to be hoped that if a Forest School shall be 

 engrafted on the Edinburgh University, after the manner of the 

 schools at Tubingen, Carlsruhe, and Giessen in Germany, no 

 levelling down in the course of studies will be encouraged. 

 Scottish schools, even in the country villages, have so often sent 

 out into the world men of the highest ability, especially in the 

 natural sciences, that with the cheap and excellent teaching of the 

 Edinburgh University at command, the highest and best results 

 might be obtained, if care is taken not to place the standard lower 

 than it is for the other branches of science. The object the pro- 

 moters of a Forest School in Edinburgh have in view is excellent ; 

 with the University to aid them, its realization does not seem 

 difficult; and all foresters will wish it success. 



G. F. Peaeson. 



DowNTON, IBth February 1885. 



ON DEVELOPMENT OF BIFOLIAR SPURS INTO 

 ORDINARY BUDS IN PINUS SYLVESTRIS. 



BY PEOFESSOK ALEXANDER DICKSON, M.D. 



AT the February meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 

 Professor Dickson exhibited a small branch of the above 

 species of Pinus, which he had foimd this winter near Biggar, of 

 which the extremity had probably been broken off, on which there 

 were about twenty " bifoliar spurs " within a space of 3 inches 

 below the injury. A well-marked scaly bud was found placed 

 Ijetween the bases of the two foliage leaves of the original fascicle. 

 While in the more feebly-stimulated spurs of this kind, there is 

 simply a closed scaly bud springing from between the bases of the 

 two leaves of the fascicle, on those nearer the seat of injury, before 

 producing a closed bud, there were developed a variable number of 

 short but well-marked foliage leaves, and in the very strongest 

 ones these foliage leaves developed secondary l:)ifoliar spars in 

 their axils. The specimen was a well-marked case of development, 

 in consequence of the removal of the extremity of the branch, — a 



