50 THE JOUllNAL OF EOTAI^T 



CORNELIUS VARLEY 



(1781-1873). 

 Br James Groves, F.L.S. 



It is gratifying to be able to include in the roll of British 

 botanists so remarkable a man as Cornelius Varley. A chance 

 reference guided me to his paper " On Chara vulgaris,'''' read before 

 the Microscopical Society on the 12th November, 1845, and published 

 in 1849 in vol. ii. (pp. 93-104, tt. 14-21) of that Society's Trans- 

 actions. The paper appears to have escaped notice, as it is not 

 included in the generally comprehensive bibliographies of the group ; 

 it was therefore a surprise to me to find in it a work of great merit. 

 It consists of twelve pages of matter with eight coloured jolates, 

 containing thirty-four figures, all but one of which are much magni- 

 fied. In these Varley describes in plain but precise language, and 

 depicts with his pencil in firm vigorous lines, just what he saw under 

 his microscope, with no bias as to what he might be expected to see. 

 It stands out in consequence as a fine original piece of work, and the 

 drawings present a marked contrast to the extraordinarily clumsy 

 and conventional monstrosities which appear in some histological 

 plates of Charophyta of the earlier half of last century. 



The accurate manner in which he worked out the structure and 

 development of the stem-cortex in its ascending and descending 

 series is astonishing, and his figures relatipg to this on tt. 17 and 20 

 have never been surpassed for clearness and breadth of treatment. 

 The drawings in detail of the various parts of the antheridium and of 

 the oogonium and oospore are also excellent, the little tAvo-storied 

 " cage " at the base of the' latter being admirabl}" shown. Though he 

 did not quite appreciate the significance of the pro-embryonic growth, 

 he showed its limited terminal process, and traced the origin of the 

 corticate plant to a bud arising within the pro-embryonic whorl. 

 His drawings of the young plant (t. 15) are very creditable. Varley 

 approached the subject rather as a microscopist than as a botanist, 

 and, although he gives a very fair general account of the structure of 

 the plant, one of the principal objects of both text and figures was to 

 show the result of his observations of the cyclosis or " streaming " in 

 the various parts, in most of which he worked out the direction of the 

 stream in each cell. In estimating the value of Varley's paper, it 

 must be borne in mind that, although not published until 1849, it 

 was read before the Society in 1845, seven years prior to the appear- 

 ance of Alexander Braun's masterly paper, " Uber die Richtung 

 verhaltnisse der Saftstrome in den Zellen der Characeen." That a 

 countryman of our own should have made such a successful incursion 

 into a field almost entirely monopolised by foreigners is a matter for 

 congratulation. 



The colouring of the plates is unfortunately both crude and 

 incorrect, but for this Varley could not have been responsible. The 

 plant dealt Avith was evidently G. delicatula Braun, not that now 

 generally known as G. vulgaris. 



This paper appears to be the only purely botanical one which 



