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a violoncello in the corner, a table near the window with a nncrosco])e, 

 a few books, and an agaric gave one a striking impression of the 

 interests of the towering, gaunt, kindly Scot. In a walk through 

 the neighbouring woods — after looking in an outhouse for fungi 

 left by any of his village boys, and having pointed out Neil (iow's 

 cottage with a certain auiount of enthusiasm — Macintosh indicated 

 the habitats of many of his mycological discoveries ; and to Barclay, 

 an old friend, he soon began to talk of mosses, birds, the river, old 

 roads, markets, hybi-id larches, and so on in a manner so interesting 

 that the younger members of the party contented themselves with a 

 word here and there, so that the old man might continue. In his 

 earlier days Macintosh had assisted Dr. Buchanan White with 

 J)unkeld localities for his Flora of Perthshire \ in later 3'ears he 

 had specialised so far as such a naturalist could do so, in mosses and 

 fungi. He collaborated much with Mr. J. Menzies, the Perth 

 mycologist, himself a working-man naturalist, and with him made 

 luany additions to the British Fungus Flora. Though these were 

 chiefly microfungi, Macintosh declared he w^as " o'er tall to see 

 the wee ains." From what one was privileged to see in so short a 

 visit, the hamlet of Inver will sadly miss the old postrunner natura- 

 list. — J. Kamsbottom. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on April 6, Dr. Kendle 

 showed a seedling of the lied Horse-chestnut {^sculus ruhicunda) 

 in which a new terminal bud had been developed to replace the 

 original shoot (plumule) springing from the seed. The- original main 

 shoot (epicotyl) had been broken some distance below the plumule ; 

 but after a few days a new growth w^as seen to have covered uj) the 

 broken section, and gradually to develop into a new terminal bud. 

 The new bud did not resemble the plumule, which pioduces at once 

 a pair of large compound leaves of a similar chai-acter to the adult 

 foliage, but suggested a normal terminal bud the outer leaves of 

 which are bud-scales, the leaves of the perfect form being protected 

 in the interior of the bud. Adventitious buds are verv common in 

 plants, but the speaker did not know of a snnilar case of direct 

 replacement of the plumule as a result of injury. 



At the same meeting was read a paper on the life-history of 

 Sfmirastrum Dickiel var. i^arallelnm by Mr. Charles Tul-ner, 

 of which the following is an abstract : — 



The want of rain, and the subsequent partial stagnation of the 

 pools left by the side of a mountain stream in Denbighshire, weiv 

 probably the cause of the very great number of zygospores produced bv 

 this desmid during the summer of 1921. It was observed that the 

 contents of the spores were, at first, of an oily chai-acter and that this 

 circumstance rendered the early stages of the nucleus difficult to trace. 

 During the later stages the production of four nuclei in the spore is 

 readily visible before its germination : this apparently indicates that 

 the process of conjugation resulted in the formation of a diploiil 

 nucleus, and that a reduction division occurred inside the spore befoie 

 the discharge of its contents. ' This early formation of " desmid 

 mother-cells *" is frequently seen, and the germination of the spore 



