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Such are the bay, laurel, holly and ivy, which are never without living 

 leaves, while in the first class such leaves are periodically wanting. 

 In the third class the leaves continue to exercise their functions for 

 several years, as in the firs, an arrangement in part connected with 

 the ripening of the seeds. The author then proceeded to expose the 

 erroneous views of those who maintain that it is only the buds of a 

 tree which are alive, and that its timber is dead, and destined to serve 

 merely as a soil for the buds on their evolution in spring. He re- 

 stricted his proofs to the leaves and branches connected with them 

 which live throughout a succession of seasons — to the mode in which 

 buds can be forced — and to the individual differences preserved, in 

 the case of fruit trees, between the stock and graft during the whole 

 period of their connexion. 



2. " On Carex saxatilis, X., and Carex Grahami, Boott.^'' by Dr. 

 Balfour. In this communication Dr. B. endeavoured to show that 

 intermediate forms exist which seem to connect the two species. He 

 exhibited specimens picked on Ben na Cruichben, near Killin, in 

 1844, which §howed chai-acters partly of the one species and partly 

 of the other; — all gradations are found from the true form of C. saxa- 

 tilis, with its rounded or ovate, dark, erect spikes, and ovate, beaked, 

 emarginate perigynia slightly longer than the scale ; to C. Grahami 

 with its oblong-ovate, somewhat nutant spikes, and bifurcate perigy- 

 nia, twice as long as the scales. 



Dr. Balfour exhibited a series of American ferns, contributed by 

 Dr. Gavin Watson, of Philadelphia, among which the following were 

 the most interesting species and varieties : Cistopteris tenuis of 

 Schott, a variety of C. fragilis, and various intermediate forms — Po- 

 ly stichum acrostichoides, some specimens with rounded pinna?, and 

 others with the pinnae much divided and deeply serrated : among the 

 latter were several with the fructification extending to the lowest 

 pinnae ; — Diplazium thelypteroides of Presl, several with the segments 

 of the pinnae very acute ; — Lastraea spinulosa, various forms, includ- 

 ing L. intermedia of American botanists ; — Lastraea lancastriensis, a 

 form approaching L. cristata, but apparently distinct : in some speci- 

 mens the frond was alternately pinnate, with the pinnae approximated, 

 cleft, or slightly pinnatifid, the segments rounded or slightly toothed : 

 in others the pinnae were deeply pinnatifid, and much toothed, more 

 or less acute; while in a third set the frond was bipinnate. Nume- 

 rous intermediate forms were exhibited, showing the transition from 

 the one to the other. Athyrium Filix-fcemina of Roth ; of this fern a 

 complete series was shown, connecting the typical form of the spe- 



