32 



Instrumente, Präparations- u. Conservationsmethoden 



etc. etc. 



Abbe, The Relation of Aperture and Power in the Microscope. (Journ. R. 



Microsc. Soc. London. Ser. IL VoL IL 1882. Part 3. p. 300—309.). 

 Davis, G. E., Practical Microscopy. 2nd edit. 8. 340 pp. London (Bogue) 



1882. 7 s. 6 d. 



Van Ermengem, Demonstration de preparations de bacteries de la tuber- 



culose. (Soc. beige de microsc. Seance du 27 mai 1882. p. CXVII — CXXII.) 



Gelehrte Gesellschaften. 



Edinburgh Botanical Society. 



Meeting o f " May 1 1 th, 1882. 



Professor Isaac Bayley Balfour, President, in the chaii-. On the 

 motion of Professor D i c k s o n , seconded by the President , the Society 

 unanimously adopted a recommendation of the Council to re - establish the 

 Society's triennial prize of Lstr. 10 in connection with the University of 

 Edinburgh, to be awarded for the best original botanical research, competitors 

 to have, within the three years preceding the award, attended the Botanical 

 class. Emeritus Professor Balfour contributed a „Notice on the Death of 

 Charles Robert Darwin, Honorary Fellow" of the Society. 



IL In a communication ,0n the Germination oi Streptocarpus caulescens 

 lately raised in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden from seeds sent home by 

 Mr. Buchanan, Blantyre, Central Africa" Professor Dickson referred to 

 the facts already known regarding the germination of such species as Strepto- 

 carpus Rhexi and S. polyanthus, from South Africa, where the two cotyledons 

 are at first very small and of equal size , but where one of these remains 

 stationary in development and finally disappears while the other continues 

 to grow, forming an elongated sessile leaf of considerable size lying flat along 

 the surface of the ground. In these species the enlarged cotyledon persists 

 throughout the life of the plant , and is the only leaf-organ performing 

 proper leaf-functions , the other leaves being developed merely as bracts in 

 connection with the inflorescence. A similar development , it can hardly be 

 doubted, occurs in Acanthonema strigosum, described by Sir J. D. Hooker 

 in the Botanical Magazin , vol. 88 , tab. 5399 — a plant belonging to the 

 same natural order (Gesneraceae) , and also a native of South Africa. It is 

 noteworthy that in yet another South African plant, of very different affinities 

 — the celebrated Welwitschia — we have also an instance of leaves, either 

 the cotyledons, or, as seems probable [certain ?] from Mr. B o w e r 's researches, 

 the two first leaves of the plumule, becoming much enlarged, persisting 

 throughout the lifetime of the plant, and performing exclusively, in absence 

 of any other foliage-leaves, the ordinary leaf function, just like'the enlarged 

 cotyledon of Streptocarpus polyanthus. In the Blantyre Streptocarpus the 

 plant germinates at first with two minute cotyledons of equal size and 

 opposite to each other — i. e. , at the same level. A little later , however, 

 one of these is observed to become larger, the other remaining stationary. 

 The larger cotyledon goes on growing, developes a distinct petiole, and 

 ultimately forms a leaf differing in no esseutial respect from the foliage 

 leaves succeeding it on the stem of this caulescent species. A further pecul- 

 iarity is that the cotyledons thus unequally developed , though at first 

 opposite each other, become, as growth proceeds, separated by an internode, 

 the larger cotyledon being carried up nearly half an inch higher than the 



