﻿164 Proceedings of the Club 



own. Dr. Allen then proceeded to exhibit numerous mounted 

 specimens and etchings, and spoke of the taxonomic characters. 

 Spore-characters though important are not to be relied on exclu- 

 sively. Measurements of any one species prove very constant. 

 In some the form of the mucro terminating each ray is decisive. 

 The spores afford specific characters both by their arrangement 

 and their markings, as shown by a T V or J^ immersion lens. 

 Their reticulations are very constant. The spirals which invest 

 the spores are very early formed, from the five bracts which form 



* 



a cup about it and soon become spirally twisted, as all parts of the 

 Characeae do, and as the protoplasm current does even before its 



cell has becomes twisted. 



All 



said that the Characeae increase in part by nutrition dependent 

 on absorption of their radicles. If these short unicellular radicles 

 are broken in collecting, the plant will finally die after the lower 

 cells have yielded up their contents toward the maintenance of the 

 others. Chara coronata, the finest of all in showing- circulation, 

 survived in his aquarium half a year without any rooting. Nitella 



fl< 



mm 



produce spores, ger- 

 i immediately into an 



upward ray-bearing axis and a descending root-bearing portion 







Tuesday Evening, December 14, 1897. 



President Brown in the chair, and 1 5 persons present 



the 



College of Pharmacy to his letter of October 28, 1897, requesting 

 for the Club the privilege of holding its meetings at that College. 

 The reply, dated December 3, 1897, stated that " by a unanimous 

 vote of the Board your request for the use of our rooms for meet- 

 ing purposes was granted." Thos. J. MacMahan, Chairman of 



Curators. 



active member. 



J 



elected an 



Dr. Britton proposed to amend Section III. of the Constitu- 

 tion by the substitution of the word "seven " for the word " five" 

 in line 4, so as to read, " Associated Editors not to exceed seven 

 in number." 



