218 Linncean Society. 



South Wales by Mr. Melluish, and has flowered there during three 

 successive years. 



Read also, " Extracts of Letters from Wm. Griffith, Esq., F.L.S., 

 to R. H. Solly, Esq., F.L.S." 



In the first of these letters, dated from Olipore, April 8th, 1840, 

 Mr. Griffith states that he had recently examined two species of 

 Ephedra, and had no doubt that the ovulum is, as described by 

 Mr. Brown, naked. The first of these species has a very siliceous 

 stem, without stomata, unless certain discs blocked up with some 

 hard matter (silex }) are to be so considered ; which he believes to 

 be the correct view, inasmuch as the other species, which has no 

 sihceous deposit, has stomata of the ordinary structure arranged in 

 a similar manner. 



He had also examined the ovaria of some Orchideous plants, in 

 which he found, in conformity with Mr. Brown's observations, that 

 the cords sent down to the placentae and subdividing into branches, 

 one of which passes on each side of each placenta, do not exist before 

 impregnation. He adds, that the size of the cords is certainly in 

 proportion to the degree of solution of the pollinia by the stigmatic 

 action. 



In another letter, dated April 23rd, Mr. Griffith describes the 

 ovule of the outer cell of Callipeltis ? (that of the inner being always 

 abortive) as deriving its membranous covering from the inner layer 

 of the ovarium. The ovulum itself he states to be reduced to its 

 nucleus, but otherwise exactly to resemble those ovula which have 

 their foramen near the hilum. The same structure, he adds, exists in 

 the two species of Galium found in the neighbourhood ; the seed 

 having no proper covering except the albumen and embryonary sac, 

 its proper coat adhering intimately with the free inner layer of the 

 ovary, and this again adhering slightly with the calycine layer of that 

 organ. 



In another letter, dated from Cabul, July 23rd, 1840, Mr. Griffith 

 alludes to the mode of attachment of Cuscuta and Orobanche. Cuscuta, 

 he says, differs in this respect but little from Loranthus : the suckers 

 stop at the first completely-formed wood, and never penetrate 

 further, and both the cortical and ligneous systems pass into the 

 stock. In Orobanche, which, however, he has only slightly examined, 

 the attachment seems to him to be made only by a bundle of ducts 

 derived from the outer part of the central system, which spread out 

 into a disc over the surface of the first completely-formed wood they 

 meet. He states the Cuscuta examined to be a gigantic species in 

 extent, infesting willows, poplars, a species of Elceagnus and the 

 Alhagi Maurorum. It also preys, he says, extensively on itself; and 

 one of its intricate masses, half covering a willow-tree twenty or 

 thirty feet high, presents a remarkable spectacle. 



February 2. — Mr. Forster, V.P., in the Chair. 



Read a paper " On a peculiar kind of Organs existing in the 

 Pitcher of Nepenthes distitlatoria ." By Prof. Don, Libr. L.S. 



These organs, named by Prof. Don ' clathrophores,' occupy the 

 lower half of the inside of the pitcher, and have been described by 



