33 



last they appear perfectly clear. In other water plants, such as 

 Lemnae, Potaniogeta, &c., Dr. Lankester had not succeeded in 

 detecting any similar bodies. As regards their function, he states, 

 that it at first occurred to him that they might perform the office of 

 stomata; but he was unable to discover any orifice among the cells, 

 or any communication with intercellular spaces below them. In 

 their structure and general arrangement they bear a closer resem- 

 blance to certain modifications of hairs than to any other epidermal 

 organs ; and the author considers it not improbable that they are the 

 result of the same tendency of the epidermal tissue under water as 

 that which produces hairs when this tissue is exposed to the influ- 

 ence of the atmosphere. 



Notice of the ' Botanical Gazette^ No. 25, Januanj, 1851. 



With the present number the ' Botanical Gazette ' diminishes its 

 quantity of letter- press to fourteen pages, and its price to sixpence. For 

 this change two causes may be assigned as probable : Jirst, the great 

 paucity of original communications, reduced in the present number to 

 three quarters of a page from Mr. Babington and half a page from 

 Mr. Buckman ; and secondly, the announcement of a rival publica- 

 tion at York, which is to contain twenty-four pages royal 8vo, and to 

 be illustrated with numerous engravings, for the small charge of six- 

 pence. The first of these causes has lately pressed more or less 

 heavily on all botanical periodicals, and if the ' Phytologist ' has 

 been able to put a better front on the affair, it is mainly indebted for 

 the advantage to the length to which Dr. Bromfield's admirable paper 

 on the Hants flora has extended ; and it is by no means certain that 

 the botanical famine which has pressed so severely on other periodicals 

 will not eventually reach the ' Phytologist.' Far bait from me, there- 

 fore, to censure a fault all but inevitable, and one which leads me in the 

 present number to make extracts and abstracts to a somewhat unusual 

 extent. With regard to the York publication to which I have alluded, 

 I think we should meet it in the spirit in which it has been projected. 

 For my own part, if the promise is but maintained, " a well-conducted 

 and first-class magazine, containing twenty-four pages and numerous 

 illustrations," supplied for sixpence, I shall certainly rejoice that 

 information is distributed at so easy a rate, and rendered so accessible 

 to all who may possess a taste for the science. 



Vol IV. F 



