NA TURE 
Research Items. 
'two alkaloids, evodiamin and rutecarpin, giving 
| different colour reactions with cold concentrated 
823 
June 16, 1923] 
Monovitus oF THE NaGA TRIBE oF AssamM.—In 
the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 




vol. lii., 1922) Mr. J. H. Hutton discusses the rhono- 
iths erected by the Naga tribes of Assam. He assumes 
that the monolith erected when the founder gains 
the highest social rank is the translation into stone of | 
the original phallic , which seem to be connected 
with the monolithic remains at Dinapur. Many 
Angamis erect a pair instead of a single stone, of 
which the erect stone represents the male and the 
prostrate stone the female—the object being a 
magical means of procuring fertility for the members 
of the tribe, their cattle, and crops. On the other 
hand, these monoliths are memorials of the dead. 
Of two possible explanations, the more likely one is 
assumed to be that the monolith is merely a transla- 
tion into stone of the wooden statue erected in honour 
of the dead by villagers who do not erect memorial 
stones. The alternative is that the erect stones 
originally commemorated a feast, and thus became 
the memorial of the giver. It has always been a 
problem how monoliths, like those of Stonehenge, 
were erected. Mr. Hutton was present at the erection 
of one of these stones, dragged by human labour, 
and his careful description of the methods employed 
throws much light on the general question of monolith 
erection. 
THE Roorinc or Cuttincs.—Prof. J. Small has 
a note in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for May 5 upon 
his experiments at Belfast, in collaboration with Miss 
M. J. Lynn, upon the effect of watering with dilute } 
acetic acid upon root production by cut shoots. 
The experiments appear to be preliminary in nature, 
and no data are supplied as to the actual hydrion 
concentration around the base of the cutting, but 
the results reported certainly seem to show greater 
root production after treatment with very dilute 
vinegar. In experiments with cuttings of Aucuba 
Japonica evidence was obtained indicating that 
carbon dioxide might have a stimulating effect upon 
root production. These results may prove of great 
practical importance if confirmed upon further trial, 
but so far the experiments with species, difficult to 
strike in ordinary practice, are not sufficiently 
advanced to justify the drawing of conclusions. 
SLEEP MOVEMENTS AND VEGETATIVE REPRODUC- 
TION IN Prants.—The Journal of Indian Botany, 
vol. iii, No. 5, contains a paper by W. T. Saxton 
upon “ Nyctinasty,’’ in which it is suggested that 
instead of the plants adopting a special “sleep” 
position at night, the leaves then actually resume a 
normal position, relaxing from a position of ‘‘ physio- 
logical strain ’’ which has been assumed under the 
influence of daylight. R.H. Dastur has a note upon 
vegetative reproduction by root runners, in which 
it is assumed that the current teaching is that buds 
are only formed upon roots when the plants are old 
or when the original stems are removed or cut down. 
The writer is evidently unaware of Beijerinck’s 
classical paper of 1887, in which the natural production 
of buds on the roots of healthy plants was fully 
described and the literature of the subject, extensive 
even at that date, very fully cited. 
CHEMISTRY OF SOME JAPANESE PLANT PROoDUCTS.— 
In Acta Phytochimica, vol. 1, No. 2, Yasuhiko Asahina 
gives a résumé of his researches, previously published 
in Japanese, upon the active principles in the dried 
fruit of Evodia rutecarpa, which in recent times has 
been almost exclusively used as tincture in Japan 
instead of tincture of iodine. In addition to evodin, 
previously isolated by Keimatsu, Asahina recognises 
NO. 2798, VOL. 111] 
sulphuric acid, and a terpene that is possibly ocimen. 
Yuji Shibata and Kenshé Kimutsuki make the 
important suggestion, backed by considerable experi- 
mental evidence, that the spectrograph provides a 
valuable means of identifying and distinguishing 
the various flavones rapidly and surely, while Keita 
Shibata, Shdjiro Iwata, and Makoto Nakamura 
describe baicalin, a compound of a new flavone with 
oe acid obtained from the roots of Scutellaria 
aicalensis. 
INVESTIGATIONS UPON FRuiIT TREES.—The Journal 
of Pomology and Horticultural Science, vol. 3, No. 2, 
April 1923, contains a preliminary report by TaN. 
Staniland upon the results to date of his quest for 
apple stocks resistant or immune to woolly aphis. 
The paper, although preliminary, describes a large 
/'number of experiments and observations upon 
artificial inoculations, from which it appears that the 
Northern Spy stock is immune under English con- 
ditions. As it is not a stock suitable for all purposes 
in this country, research is now extended to its 
seedlings, which are also to be tested for immunity. 
Some of the Paradise stocks at East Malling are very 
much more resistant than others, while two “ W ilding 
Crabs ’’ have been found which appear to be immune. 
The search for immune individual stocks is being 
continued with the view of breeding work in which 
immunity may be combined with other desirable 
characteristics. There is also a valuable report by 
M. B. Crane upon the “ Self Sterility and Cross 
Incompatibility” of cherries, apples, and plums, 
which describes the continuation of the work upon 
this problem previously reported upon by I. Sutton 
in the Journal of Genetics, vol. vii. (reprinted in the 
Journal of Pomology, vol. 1). The paper provides an 
enormous mass of valuable data, supplemented by 
some striking photographs, of the results of various 
crosses, and of self-pollination experiments. The 
results seem to place beyond doubt the fact that 
many varieties of fruit trees are completely self- 
sterile, while in the sweet cherry and the plum, cross 
incompatibility occurs, i.e. some varieties crossed 
with pollen of certain other varieties wholly fail to 
form fruit. The importance of these conclusions, 
supported with full data as to varieties and their 
behaviour, to the grower stocking an orchard, scarcely 
needs comment. Points of great scientific interest 
continually arise in the course of such long-continued 
and carefully controlled experiments ;_ for example, 
the observation now reported that apple varieties 
originally quite self-sterile have indubitably become 
slightly self-fertile with advancing age. 
New Isopop FROM CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.—Prof. 
C. Chilton describes (Trans. R. Soc. S. Australia, 
xlvi., 1922) a new species of Phreatoicus, a fresh- 
water crustacean, which occurred in thousands in 
the hot water near an artesian bore at Hergott, a 
little south of Lake Eyre. The specimens had well- 
developed eyes and were of a dark-slaty colour ; 
hence they evidently had not come up the bore from 
underground waters. Specimens were later found 
in various springs and natural waters over an area 
of about thirty miles, so that the species is widely dis- 
tributed. Although the species is placed for the 
present in the genus Phreatoicus, it differs from the 
other members of the genus in the greater expansion 
of the basal joints of the last three pairs of ghee 
and in the apparent absence of the coxal joints of 
all the pereopods. The first species of Phreatoicus 
