264 botanical gazette. [October, 



Dr. Britton read a paper on the occurrence of a Siberian 

 Labiate in Canada, and exhibited dried specimens of it. The 

 plant is Elsholtzia cristata Willd., and was collected by Dr. 

 John J. Northrop on the shore of Lake Notre Dame, province 

 of Quebec, in 1887 and 1889. It appears like an indigenous 

 plant in its habit of growth and persistence, but is supposed 

 to have been introduced in wheat. 



Dr. Britton also spoke of the trip of Dr. Morong in South 

 America and its expected results in adding greatly to our 

 knowledge of the little known flora of Paraguay. Drs. Bur- 

 rill and Campbell were appointed a committee to draft a res- 

 olution expressing the interest of the club in Dr. Morong's 

 labors. 



Dr. W. J. Beal gave a description of the fruiting of Mes- 

 •ocarpus (Pleurocarpus) from collections made at Lansing, 

 Mich., showing both lateral and scalariform conjugation on 

 the same plants. As this is the principal character separat- 

 ing the two genera, the observation appears to remove all 

 doubt that the latter genus should be merged in the former, 

 a change that has already been suggested. The discussion 

 was chiefly on the significance of conjugation in general. Dr. 

 Burrill spoke especially of the so-called conjugation of the 

 secondary spores of Tifletia. Dr. Bessey Ihought this might 

 be an obsolescent sexual act on an obsolescent mycelium. 

 Dr. Campbell said the essential part of the sexual act is the 

 copulation of the nuclei, already demonstrated in some Zyg- 

 nemace^e and other lower orders, and abundantly in the 

 higher ones. 



Dr. Douglas H. Campbell called attention to the chloro- 

 phyll in the embryo of Celastrus scandens, exhibiting speci- 

 mens, as illustrating the formation of chlorophyll in compar- 

 ative darkness. Dr. Britton alluded to the similar case of 

 chlorophyll in the pith of Phoradendron. He also said that 

 he had seen a Lima bean plant grown by a workman on one 

 of the lower levels of the Dickinson iron mine in New Jersey 

 which had reached full eight feet in height and had an abun- 

 dance of chlorophyll, although its only light came from can- 

 dles. 



Dr. Campbell then described his methods of obtaining 

 and staining the pollen mother-cells of Podophyllum and Al- 

 lium to show nuclear division. He also spoke of the ease 

 with which he had grown aquatic plants in the laboratory for 

 cla use by using large glass jars and only occasionally 

 changing the water. This evoked quite an animated discus- 



