369 



SHOET NOTES. 



The Charace^ of ' English Botany,' ed. hi. — In the review of 

 the above-named work (p. 350) the Messrs. Groves seem to me to 

 have been rather severe in their criticism. They say : — " Under 

 N. nidifica Mr. Brown did not happen to see the difference between 

 plants which Braun liad distinguished, so he had no doubt Braun 

 was wrong, and wrote, ' The nucules examined by Braun must have 

 been quite immature ones.' As if Prof. Braun did not know unripe 

 nucules when he saw them!" Now Braun himself (' Fragmenta 

 einer Monographie der Characeen,' p. 94) writes, '' Tolypella nidifica 

 forma intermedia, — . . . . Semina .... unreif." And a few lines 

 later he again says — "Antheridien habe ich niclit gesehen. Spo- 

 rangia unreif." For the Messrs. Groves to have overlooked Braun's 

 statement that the nucules were miripe is altogether inexcusable, as 

 Mr. Brown devotes six lines of text to a translation of what Braun 

 says. And if Mr. Brown did consider it "questionable whether N. 

 nidifica and N. glomerata are more than varieties of each other," 

 yet he kept them distinct, and left the matter subjudice till the plant 

 should " again be found in the British Isles." And Braun himself 

 admitted that he was doubtful to which of the two his ''forma 

 intermedia" was most allied. Ecspectiug the absence of nucules 

 from Borrer's Lancing specimen of X. (jlomerata var. SmitJiii, Mr. 

 Brown is certainly wrong. I have examined a small branch of this 

 specimen, and find very young nucules present ; but it requires a 

 magnification of 150 diameters to make out clearly that they are 

 nucules. The specimen is in a very young state ; the best developed 

 nucule I found being in the condition represented in Sachs' ' Text- 

 book,' ed. i., fig. 208 (ed. 2, fig, 201). I could not find them at all 

 on some branchlets. The blunder may be '• inexcusable," but Mr. 

 Brown is not the first to make it. The specimen is figured in 

 Sowerby's ' English Botany,' t. 1708. Sowerby found no nucules, 

 so added a fragment from another plant (from Cley) to show a 

 nucule. Sir James E. Smith (in the description) says, "no germens 

 [nucules] could be found." Borrer (Engl. Bot. Suppl. sub t. 2762, 

 correcting an error as to the locality of the Lancing specimen) 

 states, "no nucules were produced." It is clear that these authors 

 are wrong, and it is also satisfactory to be able to clear up a 

 batch of blunders. But I think it would have been better to 

 have left the reference to "intense egotism" out of the question. 



E. A. EoLFE. 



With Mr. Eolfe's permission, the Editor has shown us the above 

 note. Had we overlooked Braun's statement that the nucules in 

 question were unripe, it would certainly have been inexcusable ; 

 but we had not, and Mr. Eolfe has altogether misapprehended the 

 object of our remarks as to Mr. Brown in connection with A^ 

 nidifica. To make the matter quite clear, we now quote Mr. Brown 

 at greater length, with reference to the Lough Neagh plant : — " A 

 very careful examination of this specimen with N. nidijica and X. 

 ylumerata, however, has not corroborated what Braun has stated. 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 23. [Dec, 1885.] 2 b 



