Jan. S, 1885] 



NA TURE 



Japanese region, the climates and conditions of which are very 

 similar; and that the fossilised representatives of many of them 

 have been brought to light in the late Tertiary deposits of the 

 Arctic zone wherever explored. In mentioning some of the 

 plants of this category I include the Magnolias, although there 

 are no nearly identical species, but there is a seemingly identi- 

 cal I.iriodendron in China, and the Schizandras and [Uiciums 

 are divided between the two floras ; and I put into the list Menis- 

 permuni, of which the onlyothei species is Eastern Siberian, and 

 is hardly distinguishable from ours. When you call to mind the 

 peries of wholly extra-European types which are identically or 

 approximately represented in the Eastern North American and 

 in the Eastern Asiatic temperal h as Trautvetteria 



an! Hydrastis in Ranunculaceae : Caulophyllum, Diphylleia, 

 Jeffersonia, and Podophyllum in Berberidese ; Brasenia and 

 Nelumbium in Nymphieacea; ; Stylophorum in l'apaveracea? ; 

 Stuartia and Gordonia in Ternstromiacea; ; the equivalent spe- 

 cie of Xanthoxylum, the equivalent and identical species of 



! of the poisonous species of Rhus (one, if not both, of 

 which you may meet with in every botanical excursion, and 

 which it will lie safer not to handle) ; the Horsc-Chestnuts, 



1 Buckeyes ; the Negundo, a pceuliar offshoot of the 

 Maple tribe : when you consider that almost every one of the 

 peculiar Leguminous trees mentioned as characteristic of our 

 flora is represented by a species in China or Manchuria or 

 Japan, and so of some herbaceous Leguminosas ; when you re- 

 liar small order of which Calycanthus 



ncipal type has its other representative in the same 

 region ; that the species of Philadelphia, of Hydrangea, of 

 Itea, Astilbe, Hamamelis, Diervilla, Triosteum ; Mitchella, 

 which carpets the ground under evergreen woods ; Chiogenes, 

 creeping over the shaded bogs ; Epigaea. choicest woodland 

 flower of early spring ; Elliottia : Shortia (the curious history 

 of which I need not rehearse) ; Styrax of cognate species ; 

 Nyssa, the Asiatic representatives of which affect a warmer 

 region ; Gelsemium. which, under the name of Jessamine, is 

 the vernal pride of the Southern Atlantic States : Pyrularia and 

 Buckleya, peculiar Santalaceoin shrub; : Sassafras and Ben- 

 zoins of the Laurel family ; Planera and Madura ; Pachysandra 

 of ih Box tribe ; the great development of the Juglandacea? 

 (of which the s :.le representative in Europe probably was brought 

 by man into Southeastern Europe in prehistoric times) ; our 

 Hemlock-Spruces, Arbor-Vita-, Chamseeyparis, Taxodium, and 

 Torreya, with their East Asian counterparts, the Roxburghia- 

 ceae, represented by Croomia — an 1 I might much further extend 

 and particularise the enumeration — you will have enough to 

 make it clear that the peculiarities of the one flora are the pecu- 

 the other, and that the two are in striking contrast 

 with the flora of Europe. 



( To be continued. ) 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Linnean Society. December 18, 18S4. — Sir John Lubbock, 

 Bart.. F.R.S., President, in the chair. — The following gentle- 

 men were elected Fellows of the Society: — Liet.-Col. W. R. 

 Lewis, and Me->rs. T. P.. Blow, H. G. Greenish, A. G. Howard, 

 L. de Xiceville, C. B. Plowright, and F. Shrivell.— Mr. H. 

 Ling Roth showed roots of sugar-cane grown in Queensland ; 

 the plant appearing to him to possess two sorts, viz. ordinary 

 mil!. I fibrous roots and others of a special kind. — Mr. E. Alf. 

 i : iliited a wild cat found dead in a trap in Ben-Armin 



Deer Forest, Sutherland-hire, where they are still frequently met 

 with. — Mr. W. H. Beeby called attention to examples of bur- 

 ■gaitium) obtained at Albury Ponds, Surrey, the plant 

 inct from the other British species; he proposed 

 for it the name of S. neglectum. — In illustration of ornithological 

 note-;, Mr. Thos. E. Gunn showed an interesting series in varied 

 plumage of the somewhat rare British bird, the blue-throated 

 warbler. The examples in question were procured by Mr. G. 

 E. Power at Cley, on the Norfolk coast, in September, 18S4. 

 Mr. Gunn also exhibited an immature female little bittern, shot 

 at Broxbourne Bridge, Herts, on October 15 in the same year ; 

 as likewise a hybrid between a goldfinch and bullfinch, which 

 possessed the marked characteristics of both parents. — Attention 



. drawn to Mr. R. Morton Middleton's examples of varieties 



of Indian corn [Zea mays, L.) from the United States, Natal, 



■ Hers of the kiver Danube. The specimens showed 



marked differences from each other in size, colour, form, and in 



ornamentation of the seeds.— Mr. Thiselton Dyer exhibited life- 

 size photographs of cones of two species of Encephalartus from 

 South Africa, viz. E. longifolius and E. latifrons, neither hitherto 

 figured in European books. He also showed tubers of UIlucus 

 tuberosus from Venezuela, which, though esteemed as an escu- 

 lent in South America, proved inedible when grown at Kew. — 

 A paper was read by Mr. Henry O. Forbes, on contrivances for 

 insuring self-fertilisation in some tropical orchids. The author 

 described in detail the structural peculiarities of certain Orchid- 

 acea? which had been made the subject of study by him under 

 favourable circumstances. He arrives at the conclusion that a 

 number of orchids are not fertilised by insects, but are so 

 constructed as to enable them to fertilise themselves. This 

 paper was illustrated by diagrams referring more particu- 

 larly to such forms as P/iajus Blnmei, Spathogloltis pli- 

 cata, Arundina speciosa, Eria javensis, and others. — Prof. 

 St. G. Mivart read a paper on the cerebral convolutions of 

 the Carnivora and Pinnipedia, and wherein were described 

 for the first time in detail the brains of Nandinia, Galidia, 

 Cryptaprocla, Bassaricyon (from a cast of the skull), Mellevora, 

 GalicUs, and Grisonia. The author, confirming the views of 

 previous observers, gave additional reasons for a three-fold divi- 

 sion of the Carnivora into Cynoidea, .Eluroidea, and Arctoidea, 

 though he remarked that amongst the -'Eluroids the section of 

 V iverrina formed a very distinct group, judged by the cerebral 

 characters. He specially called attention to the universal 

 tendency amongst the Arctoidea to the definition of a distinct 

 and conspicuous lozenge-shaped patch of brain substance defined 

 by the crucial and precrucial sulci. This condition, which he 

 found in no single non-arctoid Carnivora, he also found in the 

 brain of Otaria Gillespii, and afterwards in Phoca vitulina, 

 where it is very small and much hidden. This fact he adduced 

 as an important argument in favour of the view that the Pinni- 

 pedia were evolved from some Arctoid, probably Ursine, form 

 of land Carnivora. — Mr. F. O. Bower read a paper on apospory 

 in ferns. His microscopical investigations on the growth of sporo- 

 phore generation to the prothallus without the intervention of 

 spores but confirms the statements of Mr. Chas. T. Druery on Athy- 

 rium Filix/amiua, vax.clartssima, previously communicated to the 

 Society. Mr. Bower, moreover, finds the case in point to hold 

 good in certain other ferns, for example, Polystichum angulare, 

 where there is the formation of an expansion of undoubted pro- 

 thalloid nature bearing sexual organs by a process of purely 

 vegetative outgrowth from the fern plant. That is, there is a 

 transition from the sporophore generation to the oosphore by a 

 vegetable growth, and without any connection either with spores 

 or indeed with sporangia or sori. The author goes on to point 

 out the bearing of these observations and cultures on the general 

 life history of the fern, so far as the modifications of the genetic 

 cycle are concerned ; and he further compares this new pheno- 

 menon of "apospory" in ferns with similar cases in other plants, 

 while insisting on the importance of the cases at issue. — A com- 

 munication on the aerial and submerged leaves of Ranunculus 

 lingua, L. , was read by Mr. Freeman Roper. He shows from 

 specimens obtained near Eastbourne that the two sets of leaves 

 in question differ so materially from each other that they might 

 not be suspected to belong to the same plant, the submerged 

 being larger, broader, ovate or cordate, and possessing abundance 

 of stomata. 



Geological Society, December 14, 1884. — W. Carruthers, 

 F. R.S., Vice-President, in the chair. — David Llewellin Evans 

 was elected a Fellow of the Society. — The following communi- 

 cations were read : — On the south-western extension of the 

 Clifton fault, by Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S., Assoc.R.S.M. 

 — On the recent discovery of Pteraspidian fish in the Upper 

 Silurian rocks of North America, by Prof. E. W. Claypole, 

 B.A., B.Sc. Lond., F.G.S. — On some West-Indian phosphate 

 deposits, by George Hughes, F.C.S. (Communicated by W. T. 

 Blanford, LL.D., F.R.S., Sec. G.S.).— Notes on species of 

 Phyllopora and Thamniscus from the Lower Silurian rocks near 

 Welshpool, Wales, by George Robert Vine (Communicated 

 by Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., F.G.S.). 



Victoria (Philosophical) Institute, January 5. — A paper 

 on "The Religion of the Aboriginal Tribes of India," by Prof. 

 Avery, was read. In it the author sketched the peculiarities of 

 the beliefs of those tribes, so far as was known. 



Sydney 



Royal Society of New South Wales, November 5, 1884. 



— H. C. Russell, B.A., F.R.A.S., President, in the chair.— Five 



