88 THE JOrEXAL OF BOTAXT 



o£ Ferns, as they are now seen, afe referable along sucli lines of com- 

 parison to marginal or distal monangial sori. 12. Such a position of 

 isolated or few sporangia is found to prevail in plants of the Lower 

 Devonian Period. 13. The marginal placentation of Seed-Plants is 

 probabh' more than a mere analogy. 



At the meeting of the same Society on Feb. 1, Mr. C. E. Salmon 

 read an interesting paper, illustrated by specimens, on plants likely to 

 occur in Britain. * We hope to print this in extenso at an early date. 

 To the same meeting Messrs. Charlesworth and John Ramsbottom 

 contributed a paper " On the Structure of the Leaves of Hybrid 

 Orchids." An investigation of the various anatoiuical characters of 

 the leaves of the parents and their hybrids — cuticle, epidermis, water- 

 storage tissue, mesophyll, vascular bundles, sclerenchyma, structure 

 and shape of midrib, etc. — shows that, as a general rule, a structure 

 when present in both parents in different amounts, appears in the 

 hybrid intermediate in every way — quantity, distribution, size and 

 shape of parts, etc. This can be well seen by observing the micro- 

 scopic characters of hybrids which have one parent in common ; 

 Cochlioda J^oezliana occurs as the female parent in six of the 

 primar}^ hybrids investigated and in the two secondary ones : the 

 water-storage tissue and the number of rows of vascular strands show 

 the point very clearly. When a character is present in one of the 

 parents, it may or may not be found in the hybrid : e. g., the leaf of 

 Epideiidrum prlsmatocarpum shows a large amount of crystalline 

 substance; the leaves of the hybrid LceJia cinnaharina x E. jjyis- 

 matocarpiim show these crystals, but not in such great quantity; the 

 leaves of the hybrid Lcelia teiiehrosa X E. prismatocarpum, on the 

 other hand, do not show any crystals. In general, if the character of 

 one parent does occur in the hybrid, it is much less developed than in 

 the parent. 



Caxox Bullock-AVebster publishes in the Triali Naiurnlist for 

 January an account of the Characece of the northern lakes of the 

 Fanad peninsula, East Donegal, which he studied last summer. He 

 records a number of forms hitherto unrecorded for the district, 

 including one plant which *' at present defies identification." 



Dr. Salisbury publishes in the December number of the Journal 

 of Ecolof/y, which for the present is being edited by Dr. Tansley, an 

 interesting paper on •' The Emergence of the Aerial Organs of Wood- 

 land Plants." To the s:ame number Mr. Harold Jeffreys contributes 

 a ]Daper " On the Vegetation of Four Durham Coal-measure Fells " — 

 Waldridge, Beamish, Birtley, and Tinkler: and Mr. J. W. Bews 

 *' An Account of the Chief Types of Vegetation in South Africa, with 

 Notes and Plant Succession." 



Dr. C. E. Moss left England early in the month to take up his 

 new duties as Professor of Botany, at the South African School of 

 Mines and Technology at Johannesburg — not, as erroneously stated in 

 our last issue, at the South African University. The post is newly 

 created, and we hope that amid the necessary duties of organization, 

 Profes.sor Moss will find time and opportunity for the taxonumic and 

 ecological work for which he is eminently fitted. 



