185 



SHORT NOTES. 



Crocus Korolokowi in Afghanistan. — This rare Crocus has 

 been recently obtained by Mr. W. Simpson, in his travels in 

 Afghanistan. He collected a few specimens at Bala Murghab, on 

 the level ground of the valley, G3'^ E. long, and between 35° and 

 36"" N. lat., where he found the plant growing in great quantities. 

 This extends its range further east, as Mr. Maw gives its distribu- 

 tion as between 40° and 45° N. lat. and 67° and 71° long., mention- 

 ing it as the most eastern of the yellow species. His specimens 

 were received from Prof. Kegel, without any record of date, but 

 from their characters he inferred them to be vernal species. This 

 inference is proved correct by Mr. Simpson, who states that the 

 specimens sent by him to the British Museum were collected at the 

 end of January or beginning of February. He states that the 

 leaves have in the fresh state a row of pale spots along each 

 margin, forming a most delicate and beautiful border. This, 

 however, has disappeared in the dried plants. — H. N. Ridley. 



Unusual form of attempted Conjugation in Spirogyra. — Early 

 in May, while examining some Spiroiji/ra in a vigorous state of growth 

 and conjugation, I observed an appearance which is perhaps suffi- 

 ciently remarkable to deserve mention. Two filaments lay parallel, 

 and several cells of one were connected with the cells in the other 

 opposite to them by the usual processes, but communication was 

 not yet established between the two cells. So far all was regular, but 

 the peculiarity occurred in one case. Let us call one pair of cells 

 a and a' ; and let the cell adjoining a in its filament be h, and b' be 

 opposite to b in the other filament, and therefore adjacent to a'. It 

 was seen that h' had failed to send out a process, but b had sent out 

 two. One, situated near the end of b remote from a, was short but 

 straight : the other protruded from a part of b near to a ; it pro- 

 ceeded straight for some distance, and then turned sharply round 

 at right angles, until it reached the junction of the two processes 

 prom a and a', both of which processes it seemed to touch. It was 

 impossible to feel sure that the contact in both cases was more 

 than optical : a triangle was seen, bounded by the walls of the 

 three processes. But it would seem beyond doubt that the process 

 from h, disappointed as it were in finding no response from its 

 infertile neighbour //, was led to turn aside by the joint or separate 

 influence ot a and a'. I regret that I found it impossible to keep 

 the filaments alive. It would have been interesting to see what 

 fructification would have resulted. — Sylvanus J. Hunter, S. J. 



NiTELLA capitata Ag. IN CAMBRIDGESHIRE.— We liavc rcccived 

 from Mr. Alfred Fryer specimens of this species, collected in May, 

 1885, in one of the ditches in " The Washes." These are the first 

 satisfactory specimens we have seen from Britain, although Brami 

 has referred plants from Kent, Anglesea and Kerry to this species. 

 We hope to give a full description and figure in a subsequent 

 number. In the living plant the mucilaginous covering of the 



