ox CUSCUTA GROXOVII. 177 



seedlings two inches in height with the embryos, the scales were 

 evident (at least always the inner one), and at a distance from the 

 growing tip corresponding to the increased length of the plant. 

 They in every case soon turned brown. 



How the dodder became a parasite is an interesting theme, 

 and pleasantly treated in an article in the Popular Science Mofit/ily, 

 Vol. XXV. A weak stem, desire to reach the light, twining to 

 accomplish this, and tasting juices by chance, they were nourished 

 by them and given a tendency which increased in favourably 

 situated descendants until, as Drummond states : " Henceforth to 

 the botanist the adult dodder presents the degraded spectacle of a 

 plant without a root, without a twig, without a leaf, and having 

 a stem so useless as to be inadequate to bear its own weight." So 

 it stands a monument of degeneration. Other plants with smaller 

 beginnings have gone on to higher forms, while the dodder, as 

 Prof Drummond again, in substance, says, from a breach of the 

 laws of evolution, pays one of Nature's heaviest fines — loses the 

 organs it once had. 



Mt Holyoke Se?n. and College, S. Hadley. Mass. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XVI. 



Fig. 1, mature embryo, dissected from seed. Fig. 2, tip of root of 

 a. Fig. 5. Fig. 3, enlarged view of 4, an embryo one-half nat. size, 

 just escaped from seed coats. Fig. 5, seedlings, one-half nat. size. 

 Figs. 6 and 7, accessory branching. Figs. 8 and 9, tips of embr3'os, 

 enlarged : a, inner, lower scale ; 6, outer scale. 



We learn from Nature that the Executive Committee of the 

 International Exhibition of Geographical, Commercial, and 

 Industrial Botany, to be held at Antwerp in 1890, has decided to 

 celebrate on this occasion the three hundredth anniversary of the 

 Invention of the Microscope. It proposes to organise what it 

 calls a " retrospective exhibition of the microscope and an exhibi- 

 tion of instruments produced by living makers." Conferences 

 relating to all important questions connected with the microscope 

 will also be held. The exhibition ought to be exceedingly 

 interesting, and we make no doubt it will be a great success. 



