605 



Proceedings of Societies, 8fc. 



The Phytologist Club. 



One hundred and thirty-fourth sitting. — Saturday, June 26, 1852. 

 Mr. Newman, President, in the chair. 



Cuciibalus haccifer. 



The President exhibited a series of specimens of Cucubalus hacci- 

 fer, gathered on the 9th instant, in the Isle of Dogs, by Mr. Thomas 

 Westcombe, of Worcester. Mr. Westcombe found the plant growing 

 in considerable abundance, in the old station, the only one known in 

 Britain, and thought there was no probability of its becoming exter- 

 minated. 



^production of Acrogens. 



The President called the attention of the Club to a paper by Mr. 

 Henfrey, published in Mr. Taylor's ' Annals of Natural History ' for 

 June, on the mode of reproduction in the higher Acrogens. He ob- 

 served that the paper was one of great value, as the author had col- 

 lected the observations of the principal writers on this subject, and 

 had arranged them under the different groups to which they referred ; 

 but at the same time he regretted the entire absence, in this and all 

 other papers on the same subject, of any attempt to systematize or 

 classify observations with a view to philosophical deductions. It was 

 established that certain parts of the embryo in Exogens became gra- 

 dually developed into the so-called cotyledons ; also that at a certain 

 and subsequent period the germinating axis made its appearance, 

 together with the ascending plumule and descending radicle; but no 

 observation had yet been made that afforded any clew to the origin of 

 this axis. In ferns, on the other hand, Nageli and Suminski had 

 traced, as they asserted, the origin of the plumule and radicle to the 

 presence of what were now termed antheridia and archegonia, deve- 

 loped on the surface of the proembryo, which was evidently the ana- 

 logue of the cotyledon. When the plants were matured the object of 

 our attention in the respective classes was reversed ; we multiplied 

 observations on the pollen-granules and fecundation of the Exogens 

 to admiration, but were without a single observation on the fecunda- 

 tion of the mature Acrogens. Thus we attempted to compare two 



