Gelehrte Geaellscliaften. 31 



intimate relationship with the fibro-vascular system. 5th. Thatthe formation 

 of resin and kindred secretions in these plants, is confined to the parts where 

 metabolism is active, and where there is a primär primary meristem ; that 

 all such parts give evidence of such formation, with the exception of the 

 roots. — A paper, „On the glands of Coprosma Baueriana", by 

 Walter Gardiner, was read. The so-called stipular body is placed imme- 

 diately behind each leaf, and in the young condition the stipule arches over 

 the leaf, and the glands with which it is provided secrete copiously a 

 mucilaginous fluid which bathes and surrounds the young leaf structure. 

 As to the development of the glands, they arise as protnisions of the stipule 

 parenchyma, which are covered by an epidermis. Each epidermal cell then 

 rapidly grows out a right angles to the protuberance. In Coprosma the 

 glands are situated on the sides of the stipules, but it more usually occurs 

 in other genera that they are distributed over the inner face of the base of 

 the stipular organ. — The last paper taken was ,0n the development 

 of starch grains in the laticiferous cells of the Euphor- 

 biaceae" by Mr. M. C. Potter. It is pointed out, that while de disco- 

 very of the existence of starchforming corpuscles had been made by K r u g e r , 

 yet he had failed to Interpret their function, which Mr. P o 1 1 e r 's researches 

 now fuUy proved in the case of the Euphorbiaceae, where the development 

 of rod or spindle-shaped grains of starch lying within cell protoplasm has 

 been clearly demonstrated. 



Sitzung vom 17. .Januar 1884. 

 Sir John Lubbock, Bart. , President , in the chair. — Mr. A. S. 

 Pennington was elected a Fellow of the Society. — Dr. R. C A. Prior 

 exhibited and made remarks on a series of useful timbers from 

 British Guiana. These were all hard woods , among which may by 

 mentioned the Greenheart (Nectandra Rodiaei); the „Ducalibolly^ a rare red 

 wood, used in the colony for furniture ; „Wamara", a very hard-wooded tree 

 sixty feet high, used by the natives for clubs etc.; ^Letter-wood" (Brosimum 

 Aubletii), useful for inlaying and making very choice walking-sticks ; „Heyo- 

 wabolly" (Omphalobium Lamberti), a rare tree of twenty feet high, known 

 commercially as Zebra-wood. — Mr. H. N. Rldley drew attention to a 

 fasciatedbranchofholly fromHerefordshire, in which certain 

 of the leaf-branches were curiously interwoven. — Dr. Murie called attention, 

 on behalf of Mr. Frederick Piei-cy, to a presumed portrait of Linnaeus 

 in oil, doubtfuUy supposed to be an original. — A paper was read by Mr. 

 J. G. Baker, viz., „A Review of the Tuber-bearing Species of 

 Solanum". As they stand in De Candolle's „Prodromus" and other 

 botanical works, the tuberbearing Solanums are estimated as belonging 

 to twenty distinct species. Mr. Baker thinks that not more than six of 

 those are really distinct, viz.: — (1) Solanum tuberosum, a native of the dry 

 high regions of the Andes from Chili northward to Venezuela , reappearing 

 in other varieties in Mexico and the Rocky-Mountains; (2) S. Maglia, an 

 inhabitant of the damp coasts of Chili as far south as lat. 44 o to 

 45*^; (3) S. Commersoni, a low-level plant of Uruguay, lately introduced as 

 a novelty under the name of S. Ohrondu. (4) S. cardiophyllum , a little 

 known species from the Mexican highlands; (5) S. Jamesii, a native of Mexico 

 and the Rocky mountains ; and (6)S. oxycarpum, a native of Central-Mexico. 

 The two last have the tubers vei-y small. All our cultivated races of potato 

 belong to S. tuberosum ; but the plant gathered by Darwin in the Chonos 

 Archipelago and that experimentised upon by Sabine at Chiswick are both 

 S. Maglia. The author attributes the deterioration of the potato partly to 

 its being cultivated in too humid climates and partly to the tuber having 

 been unduly stimulated at the expense of the other organs of the plant. 

 There are many hundred species of Solanum known which do not produce 

 any tubers , but maintain their ground in the world by their seeds alone ; 

 and he argues that, in order to extend the power of climatic adaptation of 

 potato species, 2, 3 and 4 should be brought into cultivation, and tried both 

 as pure specific types and as hybridised with the numerous forms of S. tuberosum. 

 -— Mr. M. C. Cooke made a communication, „On the Structure and 

 Affinity of Sphaeria pocula Schweinitz ". Originally described 



