318 . BOTANICAL GAZETTE [APRIL 
he tested and confirmed).** Green sap, obtained by rubbing up fresh leaves 
oven at 35°C., so that they felt quite dry and had completely lost their 
vitality, were rubbed up with water and yielded a sap of like powers. But 
this, as shown by microscopic observation, was dependent upon the plasma 
particles and chloroplasts which pass through filter paper; for the same sap 
after filtration through a Berkefeld or Chamberland tube, whether from 
living or dead leaves, had no such reducing power. Molisch also attempted 
to repeat Friedel’s and Macchiati’s experiments, but unsuccessfully. His 
results with Lamium, however, incline him to think that it may yet be possible 
to study photosynthesis apart from the living cell_—C, R. B 
THE SUBJECT which Professor Seward treats in a general way in his 
presidential address at the Southport meeting of the British Association is one 
of commanding importance to all students of plant evolution and geographical 
distribution, and yet it is a branch of the science much neglected by the stu- 
dents of modern groups. Professor Seward divides the world into twenty- 
two entirely arbitrary regions, and discusses briefly the rise and fall of the 
various botanical types that have moved across the stage from the pre- 
Devonian to the present time. It would seem to the writer that the differences 
between the northern and southern floras in the Carboniferous are emphasized 
somewhat more strongly than the evidence warrants, and that Professor 
Seward unduly depreciates paleobotanical evidence other than what is based 
on anatomical studies of tissues and fructifications. While it is unfortunately 
true that the latter Mesozoic formations furnish us with almost nothing but 
carbonaceous impressions, and while we might wish it otherwise, still we can- 
not afford to ignore what facts we have of the days when the angiosperms 
were rapidly assuming the leading réle in the vegetation of the world. The 
whole address is a most able and earnest plea for a sympathetic study of 
ancient floras and for a wider viewpoint among specialists in that field of 
botanical activity. It is eminently desirable that it should receive more 
attention from American botanists than it is likely to attract.— EDwarp W. 
BERRY, 
PALEOBOTANICAL Nores. — KATZER, 3 in a short paper on the geologi- 
cal development of the Braunkohienschichte of the Zenicer depression In 
Bosnia, enumerates fourteen well-known species of Miocene plants. This 
> motisem, MH, Weber Kohlensiere-Versuche  wittelst der. Leuchtbacterien- 
methode. Bot, Zeitung 62": I-10. 1904. 
SEWARD, A. C., Floras of 
Assn. Ady. Sci, Southport. 1903 
*KATZER, F., Geologki razvoj naslage mrkog nglja n zenitkoj kotlini. (Geol. 
Entwickelung der Braunkohlenschichte der Zenicker Depression) Glasnik gemalj- 
muz. n Bosni i Hercegoy. 15: 101, 1903. 
the past: their composition and distribution, British 
