NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 25 



region 131 species, of which 30 are peculiar ; from the hilly 

 region 612 species, of which 219 are peculiar, and from the plain 

 472, of which 116 belong exclusively to it. 



Though this poverty in the number of species recorded is 

 regretted, it has not interfered with the application of the author to 

 the work of describing those brought to his hand. This part of 

 the book has been done with a diligence in the accumulation, and 

 a discrimination and precision in the recording of characters which 

 cannot but excite the gratitude of the student. The introduction 

 to the study of Alga;, in which their structure and morphology are 

 outlined and pointed to as the basis of classification, will prove of 

 service to those who begin this study with this as their handbook. 



The CharacecB, it will be remembered, were specially treated of 

 in the last volume which appeared by the late Prof. Alex. Braun, 

 and they are therefore not included in the statistics given above. 



G. M. 



Recherches orqanofjeniques sur les formations axillaires chez les 

 Cucurhitacees. Par M. G. Dutailly (Ass. Fran^aise pour 

 I'avancement des Sciences, Congres du Havre. 1877.) 



This paper is preliminary to a fuller exposition of the author's 

 results. With reference to the tendril, the only axillary organ 

 hitherto morphologically discussed by botanists, very different 

 views have been held. M. Du Tailly's organogenetic studies of 

 Thadiantha dubia, Bryonia dioica, Cyclanthera pedata and Cucurbita 

 perennis show that Von Tieghem's foliar theory cannot be sup- 

 ported, but that the tendril is a branch, as Naudin and Warming 

 have maintained. The latter is right in stating that the leaf of 

 this branch is often much more developed than the axis, but he is 

 incorrect in considering this extra-axillary. The author's 

 researches go to prove that the tendrils are always truly axillary ; 

 they are axile in nature in their basal portion, but foliar in their 

 upper portion or branches. 



The relationship of the tendril to the other axillary organs, 

 often numerous, has also been elucidated by a study of their 

 development, and is more simple than had been supposed. The 

 tendril is completely independent of the principal axis, and 

 entirely inserted on the axillary branch. In fact, all the axillary 

 productions in the species above named, and in Ecballium 

 Elaterium also, different as they appear, and complex and variable 

 as they are, are in each case connected with one another and are 

 not separate productions ; in the axil of each leaf there exists but 

 a single axillary (always leafy) bud. Of this the two lower inter- 

 nodes are extremely short, and the branches inserted on them are 

 of a special nature. That at the lowest node is a tendril (wanting 

 in Ecballium), that at the second is a flower or a more or less 

 complex inflorescence. The third node is always normal, bearing 

 an ordinary leaf, in the organs of which commence to appear the 

 organs above described. H. T. 



