i897] THE SEED PRODUCTION OF CUT FLOWERS 339 
and was easily recognised as a bulbil. At first these granules are 
covered by the green epidermis of the flower-stalk, but as they 
gradually increase in size they burst through this as little white 
lumps. Microscopic examination shows that these bulbils are 
always exogenous in their origin. Inflorescences of hyacinth which 
were cut off close to the bulb and placed in water then had their 
flowers also removed, so that nothing but the peduncle remained, 
When examined nearly two months later, it was found that bulbils 
had developed close to the places where the flowers had been situ- 
ated. In this case it seems that the food-stuff in the peduncle was 
first cut off from the bulb, and so travelled towards the flowers, 
but finding its passage blocked here also by the removal of the 
blooms, it expends itself in forming bulbils close to their remains. 
Finally, Lindemuth ends his paper with practical conclusions for the 
eulture of bulbous plants drawn from these experimental data. 
This brief English note has been written in order to call the 
attention of those into whose hands the Bot. Zeit. does not usually 
fall to the services which Medicus rendered to plant biology. To 
glance through the pages of Professor Sachs’ History of Botany, the 
only knowledge that we can gain of this older observer is in a few, 
scant, depreciating references. Granted that the light of genius did 
not lead him into the right path in one section of botany (anatomy) 
we still should not allow the memory of an enthusiastic and careful 
observer in other departments of the same science to be altogether 
forgotten, or, worse still, to be alone remembered for the errors into 
which he fell. Most of us, even to-day, are not always in the right, 
and this should teach us to “render the deeds of mercy” towards 
the memory of others who, living at a less enlightened period, some- 
times went astray with their fellows, and did not rise above their 
times, but who on other occasions saw things with an “ inward light ” 
which was denied to their contemporaries. It is no doubt the ex- 
traordinary work of Professor Sachs himself and his school which has 
ae placed in the shadow all older writings upon plant physiology. 
RupoLr BEER, 
