258 



NA TURE 



[April 29, 1909 



' The report of the commission for the flora of Germany 

 regarding new localities for plants recorded during the 

 years 1902 to 1905 has been published as a supplement 

 to last year's volume of the Berichte der deutschen 

 botanischen Gesellschaft (vol. xxvi., A). It is a continua- 

 tion of the reports issued as part of the supplements to 

 the twentieth and earlier volumes of the Berichte, but is 

 confined to phanerogams. The arduous task of compila- 

 tion has been undertalcen by Prof. K. W. von Dalla Torre. 

 As in previous reports, the systematic list of records is 

 arranged according to the floras of Koch and Garclte, and 

 is preceded by a bibliography of publications consulted. 



The notes contributed by Mr. J. E. C. Turner to the 

 Indian Forester (February) on the germination of myra- 

 bolan seedlings, Termiiialia chebula, are of interest, as 

 the conditions must be somewhat similar in the case of 

 not a few drupaceous fruits yielded by trees. Some myra- 

 bolan fruits are plump and round, others are strongly 

 ridged ; the latter arc preferred commercially, but the 

 former are recommended for propagation. The ridges are 

 due to the shrinking of the mesocarp, which causes also 

 the tighter and more solid encasement of the seed. The 

 fruits are sometimes penetrated by a fungus which reduces 

 the mesocarp to powder ; in this case, or when for other 

 reasons the mesocarp does not shrink, the fruits remain 

 round, and at germination the embryo has little difficulty 

 in emerging. 



An important contribution to the classification of the 

 Geoglossace;e, a family of ascomycetous fungi, has been 

 furnished by Dr. E. J. Durand, who has published in the 

 Annales Mycologici (vol. vi., No. 5) a systematic account 

 of North American species. It is based on the examina- 

 tion of many type-specimens and duplicates in American 

 and European herbaria, and is fully illustrated with out- 

 line drawings and photomicrographs. Two groups are dis- 

 tinguished, the Geoglosseae, mostly clavate, like a simple 

 type of Clavaria, and the Cudonieae, mostly pileate. 

 Under Geoglossefe seven genera are identified, including 

 Microglossuni and Corynetes for the hyaline-spored species, 

 and a genus, Gloeoglossum, for species of a viscid, gela- 

 tinous consistency. The Cudonie^ are arranged under the 

 four genera Leotia, Vibrissea, Apostemidium, and 

 Cudonia. Confirmation is given to the researches of 

 Dittrich that the young hymenium of many species is 

 covered by a veil, comparable to the " volva " of the 

 agarics ; it is best seen in Cudonia hitca and Spathularia 

 •velutipes. 



The report of the East Kent Scientific and Natural 

 History Society for the year ending September, 190S, 

 contains the presidential address delivered by Mr. S. 

 Harvey at the commemoration of the jubilee of the society. 

 Among the notes there is reference to the discovery of 

 Salvia verticillata near Dover, where, according to the Rev. 

 J. Taylor, it appeared to be well established; this plant is 

 not listed in Hooker's " Student's Flora " or in the 

 " London Catalogue," but is given in Dun's " Alien Flora 

 of Britain." Another interesting find, made by Mr. W. R. 

 Jeffery on Westwell Down, was an apparent hybrid between 



Verbascum Lychniiis and Verbascum Thapsus. The 

 hybrids were much taller than the species, produced 



inflorescences similar to Lychnitis, but bore yellow flowers 

 like Thapsus. 



Dr. L. Ritter von Sawicki publishes a discussion of 

 the vexed problem of the Rhine-Rhone water-parting in 

 the Zcitschrift of the Berlin Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde. 

 The main conclusions at which he arrives are four in 



NO. 2061, VOL. 80] 



number: — (i) the present Rhine-Rhone water-parting was 

 formed during the Quaternary period, and destroyed the 

 unity of the former system which flowed to the Rhine ; 



(2) it was formed by a displacement of the old divide 

 caused by lowering of the Geneva basin. This lowering 



(3) can be correlated with the levels of inter-Glacial times ; 



(4) the " Biihl " period is an important epoch in the 

 glacial time, and on the Lake of Geneva it can be divided 

 into at least three phases, of which the second is the most 

 important. 



The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea 

 has issued a supplementary part of the " Bulletin Trimes- 

 triel " for 1906-7, containing a rhunie of tire observations 

 made and the results obtained in the areas under investiga- 

 tion. The region is divided into eight sections : — the Gulf 

 of Bothnia, the Baltic (including the Gulf of Finland, the 

 waters between Riigen and Scania, and the Baltic proper), 

 the Belts and the Kattegat, the Skagerak, North Sea and 

 English Channel, the Irish Sea, the Atlantic, the Nor- 

 wegian Sea, and the Arctic Sea, and in each case a short 

 description is given of the general distribution of tempera- 

 ture and salinity. Twenty-three plates giving mean values 

 from August, 1902, to May, 1906, accompany the memoir, 

 which is invaluable as marking a stage in the discussion 

 of the vast quantity of material acquired by the council. 

 It is obviously impossible to give, in the space at our dis- 

 posal, even a short abstract of the results stated ; suffice 

 it to say that in each subdivision marl<ed progress has 

 been made in the elucidation of the dilTicult problems of 

 surface and under-surface circulation. 



The Bulletin of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of 

 Moscow (vol. xxi.. No. 4) contains a detailed and valuable 

 discussion, by Dr. E. Leyst, of the meteorological observa- 

 tions made in 1907 at the observatory in connection with 

 the university of that place. Observations are made thrice 

 daily, and tiiose are used as standards for checking the 

 hourly tabulations from the self-recording instruments, of 

 which the observatory possesses a very complete set. The 

 year 1907 was about 2°-2 F. below the normal ; the mean 

 was 36°-9 ; January 4°-6, July 65°-5. The extreme read- 

 ings were 85°-3 and — 27°-2; the absolute extremes during 

 the last fifteen years were 96°-3 and — 34°-6. Only 198 

 days in the year 1907 were quite free from frost. The 

 rainfall, &c., amounted to 20-87 inches, the number of 

 days being 209 ; the amount was normal, but the average 

 number of days of precipitation is 171. The hours of 

 bright sunshine numbered nearly 1300 — about the average 

 for the north-east of England. Although the results are 

 not published in this summary, the observatory records 

 earthquake phenomena, observations of atmospheric elec- 

 tricity, and terrestrial magnetism. The investigation of 

 the upper air has been temporarily suspended for want of 

 funds. 



When carbon, metals, or metallic oxides are heated in 

 a vacuum they give out negative electrons, and expressions 

 for the number of electrons emitted in a second, the electric 

 charge they carry, and the energy with which they leave 

 the surface from which they are emitted, have been given 

 by Profs. O. W. Richardson and H. A. Wilson. Part iv. 

 of the Verlinndlungen der deutschen physikalischen Gesell- 

 schaft contains an abstract, and part iii. of vol. x.xviii. of 

 the Annalen der Pliysik a complete account, of the 

 measurement of the energy of these electrons recently made 

 by Drs. A. Wehnelt and F. Jentzsch, of the University 

 of Berlin. They measure the energy necessary to keep 

 the temperature of a platinum wire covered with calcium 

 oxide constant, first when electrons are, secondly when 



