037 



raucous matter which surrounds them. Leuwenhoeck observed long 

 ago that, in the ova of certain Mollusca, the yolk revolves in the sur- 

 rounding fluid at a certain stage. If there be no mistake about the 

 phenomenon alluded to in Hajmatococcus, and T cannot detect any 

 source of deception, and if to it we add the mode of subdivision of 

 the cells, we have a remarkable analogy between the ovum of certain 

 animals, and an organism decidedly vegetable, and of very simple 

 structure. In the ovum of the animal it is well known that the mo- 

 tion is produced by ciliae, which make their appearance at an ad- 

 vanced stage ; what may be the true cause in the plant I am unable 

 at present to say. The motion in the Haematococcus is very slow 

 compared with that in the ova in question." 



As the other papers relate to the plants of distant lands, they are 

 foreign to the avowed objects of the * Phytologist.' The "Supple- 

 mentary Notes on the Botany of the Azores " may be a partial ex- 

 ception; the affinities between the Azoric and Britannic Floras being 

 close, and constituting important facts in any attempts to account for 

 the present distribution of plants on the surface of the earth. Some 

 brief remarks on these aflfinities were made in the ' Phytologist ' for 

 last year (Phytol. ii. 463). In the article before us, Mr. Watson adds 

 a list of forty-eight species, received by him from the Azore Islands, 

 since the publication of his former papers on the same subject. 

 Thirty of these added species are clearly indigenous in the British 

 Islands, and four of the others are more or less established with us ; 

 the remaining fourteen species, with one exception, being recorded 

 natives of South Europe or Madeira. On looking over the list of 

 names, however, there can be no hesitation in ascribing much of the 

 specific afiinity between the two insular Floras to the operations of 

 mankind, rather than to any more natural agency ; many of the spe- 

 cies being those agricultural or road-side weeds which emigrate 

 widely with mankind, as Lamium amplexicaule and Capsella Bursa- 

 pastoris. But there are others in the list which appear to be among 

 those least likely to have been so conveyed, as Hypericum Elodes 

 and Myriophyllum alterniflorum. 



It is a circumstance worthy of note, while alluding to similarities 

 in the botany of the diff"erent countries, that several of the Azoric 

 representatives of British or European species are stated to present 

 certain slight differences, sufficient to separate them as varieties, and 

 yet not sufficient to establish them as genuine species ; and, more- 

 over, that in some instances these differences have been transmitted 



