376 Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 



funguses of some kinds. Mr Cooke, in a written account, says, 

 *' I put it into brine a little below saturation, suspending it by 

 a delicate thread of silk, and closing the bottle by means of 

 glass. Since that time it has remained in the solution, and, 

 with the exception of having become a little deeper in colour, it 

 is unchanged. As spirits are not only expensive, but usually 

 deprive plants of all colour, the discovery of a cheap and effec- 

 tual solution for the preservation of plants is a desideratum." 

 The specimen was gathered at the latter end of October 1826, 

 and was presented to the Linnaean Society in May last, with 

 an account of the process. As many species of funguses may 

 be expected to appear at the latter end of this month, and in 

 the next, persons who are desirous of trying the before men- 

 tioned method of preserving such vegetables, will no doubt have 

 an opportunity of doing so. — Phil. Mag. Oct. 1828. 



34. Germination. — M. J. Pinot addressed a letter to the French 

 Academy, containing the details of an experiment on germina- 

 tion. He stated, that in a memoir presented six months ago to 

 the Academy, he had announced that the radicle of different 

 kinds of seeds, which he had made to germinate upon mercury, 

 had penetrated into the interior of that metal to a depth of eight 

 or ten lines. These experiments were repeated by him at the 

 King's Garden, in presence of two of the commissioners ap- 

 pointed by the Academy. But, as the weight of the seed, and 

 the adhesion of the cotyledonary mass to the moist surface of 

 the mercury might present some motives of explanation, the 

 value of which it were important to determine, he made a new 

 experiment on this subject. " I implanted," says he, " upon 

 one of the extremities of a small silver needle suspended at its 

 centre upon an extremely mobile axis, a seed of Lathyrus odo- 

 ratus, of which kind of seed, as is well known, the cotyledons are 

 not developed in germination. I then balanced the needle by 

 means of a wax-ball, which I stuck upon the other end, and 

 which I could shift at pleasure. I then placed it in a bell sa- 

 turated with humidity, in such a manner, that the seed which it 

 bore should be suspended at a distance of about two lines above 

 a certain quantity of mercury, which was contained in a vessel 

 placed under this part of the apparatus, and of which I had 

 taken care to moisten the surface. Germinatior; took place, but 



