554 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1882. 



the root, aikl not merely the tip, in consequence of unequally distributed 

 moisture, bends in the direction of the greater moisture. 



Sachs, in his second paper on Stoffund Form der PJlanzenorgane, takes 

 occasion to criticise sharply the statements of Vochting in his Organ- 

 hildung im PJlanzenreich. Detlefsen in the Wirtzhurg Proceedings of- 

 fers a mechanical explanation of the excentric thickenings of woody 

 stems and roots, and Kny has also published an elaborate paper on the 

 thickening of woody axes and its dependence on external influences. 

 In the second volume of Scheuk's Handbuch, Haberlandt has a treatise 

 on the Physiologischen Leistungen der PJlaiizengewebe, which is an elabo- 

 ration of the subject of the physiological significance of the different 

 histological systems of plants from the point of view first adopted by 

 Schwendener in his MeTcanisclie Princip des Monocotyledones Baues. 

 Cunningham, in the Quart. Journ. Micros., and Gardiner, in the Proc, 

 Royal Soc, state that by means of reagents which contract the proto- 

 plasm in contractile organs, especially in the pulvinus of the petioles 

 of the sensitive plant, there is a direct communication of the protoplasm 

 of adjacent cells through pits in the cell walls. 



The relations of i)lauts to insects and the contrivances for cross-fer- 

 tilization in different species have been studied by a number of botanists, 

 including several in this country. Hermann Miiller has a third part of 

 his Weitere Beohachtungen iiher Befruchtung der Blumen diirch Insecten^ in 

 which the arrangements for crossing in a considerable number of species 

 are given in detail, and also a paper on the "Relation of the Honey-bee 

 to Flowers," in which he states that the bee assists not only in the crossing 

 of insectivorous but also of anemophilous flowers. In the Bot. Zeitung, 

 Miiller describes the biological significance of the arrangements for 

 crossing in Eremurus spectabiiis. In a paper in the Proc. Ifat. Hist. 

 Soc. of Boston, by Trelease, on the "Structures which favor cross-fertiliza- 

 tion in several plants," he explains the arrangements for fertilization in 

 several obscure cases which have not been hitherto well studied by bot- 

 anists, more particularly in the Ericacece and Proteacece. Trelease also 

 has a paper in Am. Naturalist, on the "Heterogony of Oxalis violacea," 

 and in the Bot. Gazette is a discussion by Trelease and A. F. Foerste as to 

 the character of the dichogamy in Umbelliferce. The Am. Naturalist has 

 a paper by J. E. Todd on the flowers of Solanum rostratum and Cassia 

 chamwcrista with reference to cross-fertilization. F. Ludwig, in Kosmos, 

 hints that in Philodendron bipinnatifidum fertilization may be aided by 

 snails. The subject of caprification is treated in an elaborate paper by 

 SolmsLaubach; and mKosmos Fritz Miiller, under the title of Caprijicus 

 und Feigenbaum, gives the results of his observations on the fertility of 

 fig trees in Brazil. " Insectivorous plants" are described by Schimper in 

 the Bot. Zeitung, the species observed belonging to the genera Sarra- 

 cenia, Drosera, and Utricularia. 



