364 
BOTANY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
Dr. C. E. MOSS. 
Tue address of the President of the Botanical Section was a 
clear, clever, and incisive statement of some of the more 
abstruse problems of physiological botany, and Professor Farmer 
holds that it is only by the help of the elder sciences of chemistry 
and physics that the accurate formulation, to say nothing of the 
final solution, of the problems will be achieved. The majority 
of the papers were of a very technical nature; and close students 
of botany should make themselves acquainted with the details 
of the communications of Professor Bower on the embryology of 
the Pteridophytes ; of Dr. H. C. J. Fraser, on nuclear fusions 
and reductions in the Ascomycetes; of Professor and Dr. 
Armstrong on enzymes; and of Mr. Gwynne-Vaughan on the 
real nature of the so-called tracheids of ferns. We understand 
that Professor Bower’s communication will be embodied in the 
final chapter of his forthcoming book. The real nature of 
anything is always of interest to students of any branch of 
science, and it has to be confessed that the results embodied 
in Mr. Gwynne-Vaughan’s work on the real nature of the so-called 
tracheids of ferns justified his rather ambitious title. It was 
more than interesting to see a young man pointing out to the 
veterans of botany their shortcomings in this particular matter, 
and more than pleasing to note the favourable reception given 
by them to his observations and conclusions. Mr. W. Bell, the 
local secretary of the botanical section, gave a highly interesting 
account of Charnwood Forest, and his remarks were illuminating 
in connection with two excursions of the section to that inter- 
esting region. The forest is partly under cultivation now; but 
extensive and primitive oak woods, and bracken-clothed hills 
still exist. The oak woods have a carpet of Holcus mollis and 
Pteris aqguilina, varied in one case by extensive plant societies 
of Lusula maxima. Professor Weiss gave an excellent semi- 
popular lecture on ‘‘ Some recent advances in our knowledge of 
pollination of flowers.”’ Mendelism was very much to the fore, 
both in individual communications, and in the joint discussions 
with the zoological section on the physical basis of hereditary 
transmission. One of the most profitable excursions was to 
Burbage, to see Mr. C. C. Hurst’s experiments in heredity 
on sweet peas, rabbits, and school children. Particulars of 
these experiments were supplied on a special circular. There 
Naturalist, 
