74 EXAMINATION OF MR. STEPHEN WILSOn's " SCLEROTIA.'* 



The homology is not weakened by the fact that the lower barren 

 glume is often situate high on the pedicel between it and the usually 

 suppressed subtending bract below, for I have met with numerous 

 cases, particularly in Carex si/lratica, in which the axillary bract, or 

 ochrea, is situate some distance from the subtending bract, and in 

 these cases the ochrea takes the form, more or less, of the 

 utriculus, and the ovary is sometimes present, sometimes absent 

 (Tab. A, Carex riparia.) 



The annexed figure (Fig. 19) of a branch of Cri/psis aculeata 

 remarkably supports the views set forth in this paper, respecting 

 the similarity of the construction of the parts of the infloresence 

 in grasses and sedges. The pale in this species is one-nerved. 



Lastly, the seta which I have found to be more or less 

 developed in so many species of the genus Carex, and which is so 

 characteristic of the genus Uncinia, has been shown to be the 

 rudimentary development of a secondary axis, while the " acicula " 

 of Dumortier is the terminal portion of the rachilla or main axis 

 of the spikelet ; the seta and the acicula are therefore analogous 

 portions of two different axes. 



I have endeavoured to prove that the pale in the floret of 

 grasses is the homologue of the ochrea and utriculus in C((rcx, and 

 that the latter is a single floral envelope; therefore, if my reasoning 

 be correct, it necessarily follows that the pale is also single. 



FURTHER EXAMINATION OF MR. STEPHEN WILSON'S 



" SCLEROTIA." 



By George Murray, F.L.S. 



When the examination of these bodies by Dr. Flight and the 

 present writer was described (Journ. Bot. 1883, p. 370), and it was 

 made known that, so far from being resting states of the potato- 

 fungus, they were no other than masses of oxalate of lime, it might 

 have been expected that the controversy was ended. However, 

 Mr. Wilson's theory, unlike the subject of his speculations, has 

 exhibited, after a period of rest and incubation, a return to the 

 manifestations of life. Mr. Wilson naturally set about testing the 

 results arrived at by Dr. Flight and myself, and succeeded in 

 finding not only the oxalate of lime, but after its removal, by means 

 of nitric acid, another substance which resembled protoplasm. He 

 thereupon jumped to the conclusion that there was life in his 

 " sclerotiets" and in his theory. His paper describing his experi- 

 ments and inferences appeared in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle' 

 (Dec. 13th, 1884), and with it a statement that M-r. Worthington 

 Smith, working independently, had fully confirmed his observa- 

 tions. A sketch by Mr. Worthington Smith illustrates the gradual 

 washing away by nitric acid of a coat of calcium oxalate from the 

 inner mass, which resisted the action of the acid.* 



* Mr. Sniilli, it will be remembered, originally deteriiiiued tlie bodies in 

 qiiestiou to be Frototnyccs ! 



