Jan. 23, 1890] 



NATURE 



28- 



conferences upon carnations, ferns, and selaginellas ; and in 

 September, at Chiswick, exhibitions of and conferences upon 

 dahlias and grapes. The drill-hall meetings began with one on 

 the subject of winter gardening, introduced by the Rev. W. 

 Wilks ; and, after the annual meeting in February, there are to 

 be papers and discussions upon hippeastrums (amaryllis), salad - 

 ings, spring flower gardening, spring flowering shrubs and trees, 

 herbaceous pseonies, lilies, fruit-drying, hollyhocks, crinums, 

 trees and shrubs for large towns, and Chinese primulas. The 

 accommodation at the drill-hall is not adequate to the wants of 

 the Society, and the Council is considering whether it would 

 not be possible to erect a suitable building on the Thames 

 Embankment. 



The International Horticultural Exhibition to be held in 

 Berlin under Royal and Imperial auspices, from April 25 to 

 May 5, will be characterized by two special features — an exhibi- 

 tion of horticultural architecture, and one of horticultural models, 

 apparatus, &c. It is requested that all exhibits or announce- 

 ments of such should be promptly sent to the General Secretary 

 of the Society for the Promotion of Horticulture, Prof. Dr. L. 

 Wittmack, Invalidenstrasse 42, Berlin N., from whom all 

 further information may be obtained. The Exhibition will be 

 held in the Royal Agricultural Exhibition building, on the 

 Lehrt Railway. The general organizer of the scientific depart- 

 ment is Prof. Dr. Pringsheim ; and the following gentlemen have 

 undertaken the management of special branches:— For the 

 geography of plants, Prof. Dr. Ascherson ; for physiology. Prof. 

 Dr. Frank ; for seeds, Herr P. Hennings ; for morphology, 

 anatomy, and the history of development, Prof. Dr. Kny ; for 

 fungi. Prof. Dr. Magnus ; for soils. Prof. Dr. Orth ; for history, 

 literature, and miscellaneous. Dr. Schumann ; for officinal and 

 technical objects. Dr. Tschirch. The Minister for Agriculture, 

 Dr. Freiherr v. Lucius-Balhausen, will be the Honorary President 

 of the Exhibition. The city of Berlin has granted the sum of 

 15,000 marks towards its expenses ; and a guarantee fund of 

 80,000 marks has been raised. 



The Calcutta Herbarium contains a rich collection of Malayan 

 plants, and Dr. King, the superintendent of the Calcutta Royal 

 Botanic Garden, proposes to publish from time to time a sys- 

 tematic account of as many of them as are indigenous to British 

 provinces, or to provinces under British influence. In addition 

 to the States on the mainland of the Malayan penninsula, these 

 provinces include the islands of Singapore and Penang, and the 

 Nicobar and Andaman groups. The classification which Dr. 

 King intends to follow is that of the late Mr. Bentham and Sir 

 Joseph Hooker. The current number of the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal contains the first of this proposed 

 series of papers. 



The January number of the Kew Bulletin contains an able 

 and most interesting report, by Dr. Francis Oliver, on the so- 

 called weather plant. This plant is Abrus precatorius, Linn., a 

 well-known tropical weed. Mr. Joseph F. Nowack claims to 

 have discovered that its leaves have "the peculiar property of 

 indicating by their position various changes in nature about 

 forty-eight hours before the said changes occur." Numerous 

 observations with hundreds of such plants have convinced him 

 that ' ' any given position of the leaves corresponds always to a 

 certain condition of the weather forty-eight hours afterwards." 

 Some time ago he devised an apparatus for the purpose of putting 

 his supposed discovery to practical use. It consists of a " trans- 

 parent vessel containing the weather plant, closed on all sides, 

 protected against injurious external influences, and adapted to be 

 internally ventilated and maintained at a temperature of at least 

 18° Reaumur, these being the conditions under which, in temperate 

 climates, Nowack's weather plant answers the purpose of a 

 weather indicator." Last year Mr. Nowack was anxious that 



his apparatus should be scientifically tested at Kew, but it would 

 not have been easy for any member of the staif of the Royal 

 Gardens to find time for the necessary observations. The task 

 was undertaken by Dr. Francis Oliver, who now presents the 

 results of his investigation. The following is a summary of the 

 conclusions at which he has arrived : — '* I contend that all the 

 movements exhibited by the leaves of Abrus precatorius depend 

 on causes not so far to seek as those suggested by Mr. Nowack. 

 The ordinary movements of the leaflets, of rising and falling, are 

 called forth in the main by changes in the intensity of the light. 

 In a humid atmosphere they are more sluggish than in a relatively 

 dry one. In other words, when the conditions are favourable 

 for transpiration the movements are most active. The position 

 for snow and hail is connected intimately, in the cases that have 

 come under my observation, with a spotting or biting (by insects) 

 of the leaflets, and is not due to any other external factor. The 

 position for fog and mist, and for electricity in the air, is prob- 

 ably due to the disturbance caused by varying light, the rhythmical 

 movements of the leaflets being temporarily overthrown. The 

 position indicating thunder and lightning I take to be patho- 

 logical from its tendency to recur on the same leaves. Daily 

 movements of the rachis constitute a periodic function in this as in 

 many other plants with pinnate leaves. The regularity of these 

 oscillations is considerably influenced by both light and tem- 

 perature." 



On Tuesday an Archseological Congress began its proceedings 

 at Moscow. The sitting was attended by delegates from German, 

 Austrian, and French Archaeological Societies. The section of the 

 Russian Imperial Historical Museum in Moscow allotted to the 

 Moscow Archseological Society was formally opened on January 8, 

 by Prince von Dolgoroukofi", the Governor- General. The collec- 

 tion consists of a variety of antiquities from the Caucasus, stone 

 and glass ornaments, beautiful enamel work from various parts of 

 Russia, ancient holy images, and antique garments and china. A 

 correspondent of the Times, who gives an account of the exhibits, 

 calls attention especially to a number of ancient gold ornaments 

 from the Caucasus (described as Merovingian), contributed by 

 the Countess Ouvarova, the President of the Society. He also 

 refers to certain Osetinian copper pins, 18 inches long, found 

 near some human skulls, and supposed to have been used for 

 dressing the hair. A helmet of Assyrian form has attracted 

 much notice. 



In one of the lectures he is delivering at Aberdeen, under the 

 Giffbrd Bequest, Dr. E. B. Tylor offered a most interesting 

 suggestion the other day as to the meaning of a well-known but 

 puzzling Assyrian sculptured group. This group consists of two 

 four-winged figures, with bodies of men and heads of eagles,, 

 standing opposite a tree- like formation, which is easily recog- 

 nized as a collection of date-palms, or a conventionalized re- 

 presentation of a palm-grove. Each of the two figures carries 

 in the left hand a bucket or basket, in the right a body which 

 each seems to be presenting to the palm-tree. What is this^ 

 body ? It is usually described as a fir-cone, but some have re- 

 garded it as a bunch of grapes, others as a pine-apple. Dr. 

 Tylor suggests that it should be connected with the most obvious 

 point of interest for which the date-palm has been famous 

 among naturalists since antiquity — namely, its need of artificial 

 fertilization in order to produce a crop of edible dates. This 

 process in its simplest form consists in shaking the pollen from 

 the inflorescence of the male date-palm over the inflorescence of 

 the female. The practice is mentioned by Theophrastus and 

 Pliny, and in modern times in such works as Shaw's "Travels 

 in Barbary." Dr. Tylor exhibited a drawing of the male palm 

 inflorescence, and said it was hardly necessary to point out the 

 resemblance to the object in the hand of the winged figure of 

 the Assyrian sculpture. As the cultivator of the palm-tree has 

 to ascend the tree in order to perform the process of fertilization,. 



