PEOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 31 



not uncommon among plants, e.g., the potato, but in contrast, 

 those of Y. gong y lodes pre-exist on the stem, are aerial at a height, 

 and when the branches decay these fall and the tubers strike root. 

 They are cylindi-ical oblong, of considerable relative size and tenacious 

 of life, and doubtless are an additional means of propagating the 

 plant in the event of drought or other deteriorating causes applied 

 to the seed. The tendrils are interesting in possessing terminal 

 adhesive disks formed without the stimulus of contract with any 

 substance as is the case in certain other climbers mentioned by 

 Mr. Charles Darwin. The aerial roots are of enormous length, 

 spring from each node, and in summer, when growing, are of a 

 crimson colour, and attract attention, as seen in the Victoria 

 House at Kew. — " On the SymplocacecB,'' by John Miers, F.E.S. 

 The author attributes to Mr. Bentham our earliest accurate know- 

 ledge of the structure of true Symplocacea, and urges the complete 

 separation of this family from that of the Styracea ; two natural 

 Orders previously confounded together. Under the conviction of this 

 necessity he details at length the essential characters of the two 

 Orders, as given in Lindley's ' Veg. Kingdom,' p. 593 (1853), and 

 he repeats his reasons for this recommendation in 1859 (Contrib. 

 i., p, 159). More recently the authors of the ' Genera Plantarum,' 

 without offering reasons, adopt the examx)le of Prof. A. DeCan- 

 dolle, who regarded the Symjjlocacea as a mere tribe of the 

 Styracece. They embrace under Symplocos all the species of the 

 Order in sections, which, however, in some degree correspond 

 with the original genera. This plan appears to Mr. Miers 

 objectionable, as several of the genera present features utterly 

 irreconcilable with Symplocos. He, therefore, adopts the plan 

 of describing the eleven already recorded genera in succes- 

 sion, gi\ing their history, a detailed generic diagnosis of each, 

 followed by the enumeration of their several s^Decies, their 

 synonyms, referring to the works in which they are severally 

 described. Thus in the paper there is arranged in a systematic 

 form all that hitherto has been recorded of the Symjjlocacea. In a 

 tabular way these may be given thus : — Symplocos, 17 sp. ; 

 Cipo7iima, 2 ; Protohopea, 2 ; Prmalstonia, 14 ; Barberina, 11 ; 

 Decadia, 1 ; Dupatris, 1 ; IHcalix, 1 ; Palura, 2 ; Lhodhra, 51 ; 

 Bobua, 23 ; in all, therefore, 125 species. — " On the Algas of Lake 

 Nyassa," by Prof. Dickie. These had been obtained through 

 Dr. Laws, of the Livingstonian Mission. The series was not large, 

 and it is remarked that all the Algal genera are known European 

 forms, while the Diatomacea;, with few exceptions, are hkewise 

 widely- diffused species. The only peculiar new form is Epithemia 

 clavata. 



Decembers. — Prof. Allman, F.E.S. , President in the chair. — 

 Messrs. G. F. Dowdeswell, Arthur Hammond, Thomas Hanbury, 

 Joseph Sidebotham, William Thomson and Charles A. Wright 

 were elected Fellows of the Society. — Dr. 1. Bayley Balfour 

 demonstrate.d the peculiarities of a rare 2iy.wmycetes, a species of 

 Heterodictyum, which he showed to have characters intermediate 

 between Cribraria and Dictydlum. — -Mr. George Murray called 



