6 riiOCEEDINGS or THE 



December 17th, 1908. 

 Dr. D. H. Scott, M.A., F.E.S., President, in the Cliair. 



The Minutes of the General Meeting of the 3rd December were 

 read and confirmed. 



Miss Anita FJorence Seed Williams, B.Sc. (Lond.), Miss Ethel 

 Nancy Thomas, B.Sc. (Lond.), Mr. Charles Francis Ullathorne 

 Meek, and Mr. Ashley Henry Maude, J. P., were admitted Fellows. 



Mr. Richard Dupont, Mr. William Herbert Mullens, M.A., 

 LL.M., and Mr. Gurney Wilson were proposed as Fellows. 



Mr. William Booth Waterfall was elected a Fellow. 



Mr. EuPEET Vallentin, F.L.S., exhibited a rare barnacle, 

 Lepas fascicularis, obtained in July last off the Scilly Isles, and 

 the coral Dendrophytlia cornigera dredged in St. Ives Bay. The 

 Eev. T. E. E, Stebbing contributed some observations with regard 

 to this and other barnacles. 



Mr. W. C. WoESDELL, F.L.S., exhibited living specimens of 

 various forms of Selaginella, and remarked that in Selaf/inella 

 inequalifolia, Spring, S. Willdenovii, Baker, ^. canalicidata, Baker, 

 S. serpens, Spring, S. Mettenii, A. Br., he observed rhizophores 

 which had grown out spontaneously into leafy shoots. The mode 

 in which this takes place shows that the rhizophore has the 

 morphological character of a shoot, as there is clearly but a single 

 organ here concerned, and there is no question of the shoot 

 developing out of an organ of a different nature represented by 

 the extreme base of the whole structure. The exogenous origin 

 of the normal rhizophores, the fact that the two (upper and lower) 

 at the base of each dichotomy of the stem form therewith a 

 tetrachotomy , two arms of which are in a plane at right angles to 

 the other two, and their constant, definite place of origin, are all 

 in favour of their shoot-nature. Transitions occur betAveen the 

 normal rhizophore and the extreme leafy form. 



The rhizophore is probably homologous wiih the " protocorm " 

 of Lycopodium and PhyllogJossum, and with the organ known as 

 Stigmaria • if so, it follows that both the " protocorm " and 

 Stigmaria are also of shoot-nature. It is very unlikel}^ that 

 organs intermediate between shoot and root can exist in Nature. 



The President remarked upon the interest of this exhibition. 



The third exhibition was by Mr. Geoege Massee, F.L.S., who 

 exhibited preserved specimens, and lantern-slides ot the " Black 

 Scab " of potatoes. During the past few years this disease, caused 

 by a parasitic fungus, has assumed the proportions of an epidemic 



