314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



Mr. Meehan stated that it is a fact well-known to most of us, that the WiS' 

 teria sinensis, as we find it cultivated, rarely produces fruit. The large seed 

 vessels I now present are from a plant I have which bears abundantly. Why 

 it does so 1 think may prove of interest to the members. 



A few years ago Darron discovered motion in tendrils. Subsequently, in a 

 paper published in our Proceedings, 1 showed that this motion required nutri- 

 tion for its force, which was so much abstracted from growth. I explained by 

 this what had hitherto been a mystery, why grapes grew more freely and 

 healthy when running over trees, than when exhausting their vigor in fruit- 

 less motion to find something to cling to. I referred to many plants on which 

 I had experimented, amongst others Wisteria sinensis ; a plant was trained a few 

 feet hign and then left to support itself. It took all its food to fight gravita- 

 tion. Since then it has continued to grow as a bush or small round-headed 

 tree, unless a branch happens to extend to the ground, or a neighboring bush, 

 when such branch will push forth with its old time vigor. In proportion as 

 this plant has lost the power of growth, it assumes a reproductive power. 

 This year from my little Wisteria tree I have gathered a half-peck of seed 

 pods. 



That weakened vigor is favorable to reproduction is well known to the 

 horticulturist. Hence the operations of root pruning, transplanting, summer 

 pruning, and ringing the bark. The novelty of this Wisteria incident is that 

 an excessive draft on the force necessary to overcome gravitation in the 

 ascending plant is also an enfeebling cause. 



The facts I have given have a three-fold interest. To the structural botanist, 

 enabling him to get specimens of fruit for examination hitherto hard to be ob- 

 tained; to the horticulturist, furnishing him with the means of freely propaga- 

 ting a plant hitherto rather difficult to increase, and to the natural 

 philosopher, furnishing an additional illustration of what I have hitherto 

 advanced, that growth in a great measure is a struggle with gravitation, requiring 

 great efforts by the nutritive powers of the plant to sustain it. 



Dec. Sfh. 

 The President, Dr. Hays, in the Chair. 

 Thirty-one members present. 



Dec. 15th. 

 The President, Dr. Hays, in the Chair. 



Thirty-four members present. 



The following paper was presented for publication : 

 " On the seed vessels of Forsythia." By Thos. Meehan. 

 Mr. Cope offered the following resolution which was adopted : 

 Resolved, That the Academy of Natural Sciences present their 

 thanks to Theophilus H. Turner, M. D., U. S. A., for his very 

 valuable gift of the skeleton of the great extinct reptile, the Elas- 

 mosaurus platyurus, from the neighborhood of Fort Wallace, Kan- 

 sas. 



Dec. 22d. 

 The President, Dr. Hays, in the Chair. 

 Thirty- four members present. 



[Dec. 



