70 Miscellaneous. 
nifest, and requires no recommendation, to judge from the results 
which haye already ensued. His own efforts with respect to coal had 
never been attended with success, and he therefore considers this 
method as a most useful and important discovery. He further stated 
that the clearness of the specimens (which were, it was to be re- 
gretted, not numerous) communicated by M. Schulz had astonished 
him, and, as might have been expected, had immediately been at- 
tended with a result. Prof. Ehrenberg had during many years 
brought before the Academy descriptions of the parts of plants (con- 
taining silica) which are found in marshy soils of all zones and in the 
infusorial deposits, and had likewise alluded to their origin from re- 
cent plants. This group, called Phytolitharia, had been as it were 
classified by him into eleven genera. Of these eleven genera only 
one is found in several forms in the purified siliceous ash of the coal 
forwarded by M. Schulz, namely the genus Lithostylidium, which 
contains regular siliceous nuclei of cells of plants. Lithodontia, or 
marginal teeth of grasses, Lithodermatia, or epidermis of plants 
(Equisetacea, Arundinacea), could not be distinctly recognised, al- 
though the presence of the latter may be presumed. Other nega- 
tive results were also particularly remarkable, namely the absence 
of all Lithasterisci, Lithosphere, Spongolites, &c. &c., otherwise so 
frequent. Finally, no trace of infusoria possessing a siliceous shell 
was found, notwithstanding the most careful investigation. 
He concluded by expressing a conviction that a rapid development 
of our knowledge on this subject would, now that a method had been 
discovered, undoubtedly take place, and a wish that this may be the 
commencement of its study. 
On the Tendrils of the Cucurbitacee. By M. J. Payer. 
In organographical researches it is sometimes necessary to examine 
comparatively the same organ, not merely in plants of the same fa- 
mily, but likewise in the same plant at various periods of its exist- 
ence, and, if necessary, to have recourse to anatomy. It is from 
having neglected these two modes of investigation that all botanists 
who have studied the nature of the tendrils of the Cucurbitacee have 
either been completely mistaken, or have perceived the truth but in 
a very indistinct manner, and without being able to demonstrate it. 
There are many plants in which fibro-vascular bundles are de- 
tached at three different points of the circumference of the cylinder 
constituting the medullary sheath, generally at one and the same 
height and at a little distance from the origin of a leaf: these bun- 
dles traverse the herbaceous envelope and pass into the pulvinus 
(coussinet) of that leaf. There, sometimes aJl three enter the pe- 
tiole, sometimes only one of them,—the central one, the two lateral 
ones continuing the nervation of the two lateral stipules. Now, if 
the lower leaves of the cultivated melon be examined, no tendril will 
be found to exist at their side*; it will be seen that the three fibro- 
* This fact may be generalized, for it results from a large number of ob- 
servations which I have made, that plants with tendrils, of whatever kind, 
never present tendrils at their lower extremity. 
