17 



Pew structures certainly offer more suggestions to the mind of the student 

 than the simple and seemingly insignificant mistletoe flower, especially if it is 

 compared with such an elaborate structure as, for instance, the flower of 

 Ranunculus ficaria, which appeals to the notice of the botanist at the same 



season. 



The Seed. The white berry, with its delicate pale green venation, is too 

 well known to need special description. After the viscid substance is got rid of, 

 which by the way, is a somewhat difficult matter, seeing that viscin is insoluble 

 in water, even in a boiling condition, we find a single seed in each berry. A 

 section of one of these is very interesting. Three vertical sections are shown in 

 figures 1 2, 3. These exhibit what are usually called the radicles ; but which it 

 would be perhaps better to call by some other name, since they differ so much in 

 function and form from the usual type of radicle. They may therefore be called 

 processes, for want of a better name. Yet it must be understood that this term 

 process is not used to the exclusion of radicle, but merely to denote a portion of 



These processes vary in number. Out of 36 seeds selected on account of their 

 uniform size and apparent perfection, 25 had two, 7 had three, while 4 had only 

 one process. They are cylindrical and club-shaped. By gently boiling the seed 

 for a few minutes they may be dissected out entire, with the plumules between 

 the embryonic cotyledonous leaves. The difference in colour between them and 

 the general mass of the seed is so great that much of their character may be 

 made out by the unaided eye. 



These processes each form a separate plant. It has never been shown that 

 these separate plants are of different sexes, but it is highly probable that they 

 may be so ; and if so we should have an explanation of the fact not unfre- 

 quently seen, of male and female plants being united in the same bush. 



Continental botanists have paid great attention to the germination of the 

 seed. The experiments of Du Hamel and Dutrocbet, showing it to be truly 

 parasitical, have been already noticed in a paper on Mistletoe by Dr. Bull, in the 

 Transactions of this Club for 1864, and therefore need not be further noticed here. 

 Numerous experiments were made with a view to testing these. Mistletoe 

 seeds were deposited on tiles, bottles, pots of hardened earth, watered with pure 

 water, or with water containing potash, and every instance fully agreed with the 

 results of former experiments. Water containing potash was used, because it is 

 known that the tissues of Mistletoe contain a greater per-centage of potash than 

 the tissues of the tree on which it grows. 



One experiment, in which the seeds had been deposited on a tile, was 

 brought to a premature conclusion, just as the processes began to protrude 

 beyond the body of the seed, by an unexpected enemy of Mistletoe. The seeds 

 were found one morning being consumed by a party of ants. As every specimen 

 was spoiled, the ants were allowed to finish their work, which they soon did, 

 leaving nothing but a few pieces of skin. Can it be that saccharine matter, produced 



