1868. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 565 
put to him by Dr. Gavin Mibroy on behalf of the Epidemiological 
Society. He remarks, “I do not believe in Hallier’s views of the 
connection of cholera with parasites on rice. I am taking great 
pains to ascertain what are the rice parasites. I believe Hallier’s 
notions to be entirely theoretical. That some cutaneous disorders 
arise from fungi is pretty evident; but there is nothing to show 
that fever or other infectious or contagious diseases arise from the 
same cause. It was supposed that diphtheria depended on a fungus, 
but I have examined diphtheritic membranes in which there was no 
fungus.” In reference to the mode of entrance of the parasite 
fungus, Mr. Berkeley writes, “In the bunt the whole process is 
traceable, the parasite obtains admission from without, and the 
spawn traverses the young plant. In plants impregnated by 
myself, I have seen the stem as well as the grain affected; but I 
never saw this in the fields. The potato murrain, again, is dis- 
tinctly traceable in affected tubers, the threads seeming to have a 
power of decomposing the cell walls, so as to gain admission to the 
tissues very deeply. In some cases the effect of the presence of 
the parasite is to produce a hypertrophy of the tissues, in bunt an 
intensity in the colour of the chlorophyll, or at least such an altera- 
tion of colour that a practised eye will at once detect a bunted 
plant. In many cases, however, I doubt whether the best micro- 
scopes will always detect fungus spawn, and such investigations 
require great caution, as the junctures of the cell walls are very 
deceptive. 
France.—Morphology of the Pistil and Ovary—M. Van 
Tieghem has received the French Academy’s Bordin prize for 
1867 for an essay on this subject. He considers that before ex- 
amining the distribution of the vascular bundles of the stem and 
ovary, it is necessary to understand exactly what is meant by the 
term axis and what by the term appendicular. He then draws this 
distinction: when the vascular bundles are arranged in such a 
manner that in transverse section they form a complete circle, or, 
in other words, surround an ideal line, we have an illustration of 
an axis; when, on the other hand, the vascular bundles are co- 
ordinated in relation to a plane, we have an instance of an appen- 
dicular organ. Starting with these definitions, the author proceeds 
to a minute anatomical analysis of over fifty-five families of plants, 
selected to illustrate all the combinations of the organs whose mor- 
phology he desired to investigate. In order to avoid ambiguity, he 
has substituted for the term aazle placentation, the term angular 
placentation: since the former is associated with an hypothesis, 
while the latter is not. Some of M. Van Tieghem’s conclusions 
will strike botanical readers as singular. For instance, he says 
that there are double appendicular organs, which spring from the 
axis under the form of a simple handle, and divide at a certain 
