120 Scientific Intelligence. 
rgb oh 
the contrary, we incline to look upon the consolidation of hetorogeneoas . 
parts in me blossom not as high specialization at all, but as want of 
velopment, i. e. imperfect elimination ; and in this light those who mail- 
tain an inferior ovary to be one immersed in a receptacle, must a re- 
gard it. 
the blossom cannot be considered as other mes an imperieetiot sg 
the loss of the corolla is no great matter, and the abortion of one ! 
sexes little more. Still hermaphroditism j is plainly in the type of the 
highest style of pee while the opposite is the case in the animal king- 
not here enter further into the discussion of this class 
of questions. No one feels more deeply than our author the want of 
poo or so ae rotece and furnished for the investigation of this prob- 
"lem, to which we invite him, as to a task worthy of his powers. 
As to the rank of Balanophor e@, if our author has demonstrated any- 
thing, it is that they belong to the highest class of plants, but ee ye 
are probably the most degraded members of it. 
9. Boussingault: Researches upon the influence which caxtenitalll ni- 
trogen in manures exerts upon the production of vegetable matter, and (2) 
Upon the quantity of nitrates a in the _ and in water of various 
kinds (Ann. Sci. Naturelles, ser. 4, vol. 7, No. 1, 1857).—Several yeals- 
ago Boussingault demonstr ated, in the clearest na rt aphoste are inca 
ago, in a paper comm anutented to the Fran edie emy of Sciences, h 
Towed that onbtgs eminently favor vegetation. He now shows, by de 
cisive ae 
(1. ses a ths vile even of ternary vegetable matter age ys 
plant oni oe upon the supply of assimilable nitrogen (amme 
nia and nitrates). A plant, such as a sunflower, with a ra ather large 
may grow in a soil of recently calcined cae in with pure W 
so far as even to complete itself by a ; but it will only have 
trebled or quadrupled the amount of velretabl matter it had to begit 
with in the seed. In the experiments, the seeds weighing 0°107 gramm@® 
in three months of oe Gul formed plants which when dried welg! hed 
air . dane months was cate "0: 0025 : 
hosphate of lime, alkaline a ae eaealiy matters ade 
to the constitution of plants exert no appreciable action upon : 
except when accompanied by matters capable of ses emer ssl 
nitrogen ro plants of the same kind, grown under the ith 
tions as above, but with the perfectly sterile soil adequately xr bad igal 
phosphate of lime, alkali in the form of bicarbonate of potas 
from the ashes of grasses, resulted in only 0°498 grammes of dri 
table matter, from seeds Weighing 0: 107 grammes; and ha 
only 0°0027 grammes of nitrogen beyond what was in the seeds. 
