498 Linnean Society. 
race oblongo: parte antica parum latiori lateribus rotundatis: partis 
posticz lateribus fere parallelis: in medio disci impressione profunda 
subquadrata, elytris profundius punctatis, podice setarum serie mar- 
ginato, pedibus gracilibus longioribus.—Long. corp, lin. 33. 
Hab. in Guinea. 
In Mus. D. La Fertei. 
Read also a continuation of Mr. Huxley’s paper “ On the Anatomy 
of the Diphyde,” &c. 
November 20.—William Yarrell, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 
Mr. Hogg, F.L.S., presented two spikes of a variety of Hordeum 
hevastichon, L., grown from seeds sown in March of the present year 
at Norton in the county of Durham. The seed was derived from 
some found in the pocket of a sailor, who died during a voyage in 
the Mediterranean. Mr. Hogg designates this variety as H. hez- 
astichon var. seminibus nigris seu ceruleo-nigris, ‘black, or rather 
blue-black Bigg.” He states that he cannot find in authors any de- 
scription at all answering to it, although Persoon and Séringe men- 
tion a similar variety of the common barley, Hordeum vulgare, L. 
The variety presented by Mr. Hogg ripens early, is exceedingly 
prolific, and has large grains; and he therefore considers it worthy 
of cultivation, and though perhaps not so well adapted to malting 
as the common barley, yet likely to be valuable for other purposes, 
and particularly for the fattening of cattle. 
Read a Paper ‘‘ On the Development of the Spores and Elaters of 
Marchantia polymorpha.” By Arthur Henfrey, Esq., F.L.S. &c. 
Mr. Henfrey commences by referring to the memoirs of M. Mir- 
bel on Marchantia, &c., and the accompanying note of Mr. Griffith ; 
to M. Lindenberg’s Monograph of Ricciee; and to the several pub- 
lications of Bischoff, Von Mohl, Gottsche and Fitt on the develop- 
ment of the spores of various cryptogamic plants. He briefly de- 
scribes the development of the little green cellular body found within 
the pistillidium which becomes the capsule of Marchantia polymorpha, 
and states that from the facts observed and from analogy he is in- 
clined to believe that the young capsule is at first formed of a con- 
tinuous cellular substance, and that the cells of this tissue become 
parent-cells, producing new cells within them, which they set free 
by becoming dissolved, exactly as occurs in the production of the 
parent-cells of the pollen-grains in the continuous cellular tissue of 
anthers. M. Mirbel does not appear to have examined the contents 
of the capsules until this complete separation of the cells had taken 
place, when he describes them as consisting of minute elongated 
cells (the young elaters) mingled with small squarish cells (the 
spores). but Mr. Henfrey found the younger capsules to contain 
elongated cells alone, and those of two sizes. The whole cavity was 
filled by such cells apparently radiating from the centre; the nar- 
rower cells being interposed between much longer and broader cells 
of the same form. The former were the young elaters, the latter 
the parent-cells of the spores. 
The young elaters Mr. Henfrey describes as elongated slender 
