420 Dublin Microscopical Club. 



exhibited a scarlet staining of an Aspergillus in fructification that 

 had been removed from the membrana tj-mpani of a medical friend. 



The fungus rapidly developed on the membrane, causing tempo- 

 rarj' deafness of the corresponding ear. The specimen, which was 

 mounted in Farrant's solution, showed a well-marked mycelium 

 and two fruit-bearing hyphoe, each having a sporangium in a more 

 or less mature condition. 



In D. B. St. John Roosa's treatise on diseases of the ear (p. 138) 

 there may be seen an illustration of Aspenjillus flavescens in fructi- 

 fication that more nearly resembles the specimen exhibited than any 

 of the representations of Aspergillus which he had seen. 



Anahcena living in Botrydium. — Dr. E. Perceval Wright exhi- 

 bited a specimen (for which he was indebted to his friend Dr. E. 

 Bornet) of Botrydium granidatum from Montmoi-ency, which had 

 been the subject of a paper by Dr. M. L. Marchand in the 'Bul- 

 letin ' of the Botanical Society of France (2Sth November, 1879). 

 It is now well known that many plants belonging to the group of 

 the Nostocs without gelatinous cell-walls live within the cells of 

 other plants : thus they are to be found in Azolla, Anthoceros, 

 Blasia, Ghmnera, and Lemna ; and it was to be expected that they 

 would equally find themselves at home in the cells of even more 

 simply organized plants. The instance exhibited was of special 

 interest ; it had been detected by Dr. Marchand while examining 

 under the microscope some plants of Botrydium, which, instead of 

 containing the usual mass of granular chlorophyll, seemed filled 

 with a chain of moniliform filaments. These were composed of 

 cells, some oblong, with yellowish heterocysts ; they did not fill the 

 entire cavity of the cell, and seemed to adhere to its inner walls. 

 The Botrydium plants were perfect : the root-like prolongations, as 

 well as the rest of the plant, were quite closed; and it is a question 

 still to be investigated as to how the Anahcena got in. Dr. Marchand 

 caUs attention to the remarkable figure of Mr. E. Parfitt (' Gre- 

 villea,' vol. i. pi. vii. -p. 103), in which there can be now little doubt 

 with the light thrown on them by Dr. Marchand's discovery, that 

 there is represented our common Botrydium granulutum with an 

 endophytic Anabcena, the latter shown in a crushed condition and 

 somewhat feebly represented ; but the observation of Parfitt is now 

 seen to be not without a special interest of its own. 



November 19, 1880. 



Tritimm monococcum. — Dr. M'Nab exhibited sections of the em- 

 bryo from seeds which had been hardened in absolute alcohol, and 

 sections cut in three directions of the naturally imbedded embryo. 

 The structure could be readily made out and a complete demonstra- 

 tion obtained of the central row of large cells from which the first 

 vessel originates. This row of cells in the wheat is apparently quite 

 the same as that figured by Kny in his ' Botanische Wandtafeln ' as 

 occurring in Secale cereale. 



