92 The Botanical Gazette. [March, 



schau (Jan.) by saying: "These results have afforded us the conviction 

 that both the Astragalus and the Crotalaria contain very small amounts 

 of toxic alkaloids, to which we believe the symptoms of poisoning 

 produced by these plants may reasonably be attributed. 



It is well established that the ovules of the higher plants are ho- 

 mologous with the sporangia of vascular cryptogams. The sporangia 

 in the latter are produced on leaf-structures — the sporophylls. In 

 the Angiosperms the question of their origin is unsettled. Gcebel in- 

 vestigated a considerable number of doubtful cases. His results are 

 confirmed and extended by Schaefer 1 who finds that m all cases the 

 placenta develops as a part of the carpel and not in the axil of the 

 carpel. 



Mr. Charles Robertson has continued his interesting series of 

 observations on flowers and insects by publishing the Umbellifcra in 

 Trans. St. Louis Acad. ScL (vol. v, no. 3). The group is so uniform in 

 flower-structure, and the species bloom so continuously through the 

 growing season, that they are specially favorable for investigation con- 

 cerning the effect of time of blooming on the character of the visitors. 

 In his general review of the order Mr. Robertson draws some very in- 

 teresting conclusions, which are too numerous and specific to be 

 enumerated here. 



The report of the botanist of the Department of Agriculture for 

 1890 will show that the following collectors have been at work during 

 the year in unexplored or interesting regions: Dr. Edward Palmer in 

 Lower California, Western Mexico, and Arizona; Mr. G. C. Nealley m 

 Western Texas; Mr. J. H. Simpson in the region about Manatee, 

 Florida; and Mr. C. R. Orcutt in the Colorado Desert of Southern 

 California. All these collections either have been or will be reported 

 upon in the new series of "Contributions" now being issued by the 

 National Herbarium. 



In the Amcr. Chnn.Jour. (xiii, 1) Dr. H. W. Wiley gives an account 

 of "pine-tree honey-dew" and "pine-tree honey." His conclusion is 

 that the " honey-like exudation of the pine tree differs in a marked 

 degree from the honeys of ordinary plants in being right-handed, 

 from a polariscopic point of view, and containing bodies not su- 

 crose nor invert sugar, with a specific rotatory power of about 105. 

 Honey made from this pine-exudation is naturally right-handed, a 

 character as yet observed to be possessed by no genuine honey col- 

 lected in this country. 



HERETOFORE no cells have been recognized in the vascular bundle- 

 of the Gymnosperms, which were either the anatomical or physiologi- 

 cal representatives of the "companion-cells " of the sieve-tubes. Stras- 

 burger, however, now considers the parenchyma cells, rich in proto- 

 plasm, which surround the sieve-tubes or are distributed between them 

 as the physiological equivalents of the cqjnpanion cells. These cells 

 stand in intimate physiological and anatomical relations with the 

 sieve tissue, by means of pits.— Cf. Sitz. d. konigl. Preuss. Akad. d- 

 Wiss. zu Berlin. 1890. xiii.— Abstr. in Bot. Cent. xliv. 192. 



*Flora, 1890, heft l./^Bot. Cent, xliv, 368. 



