390 
BOTANY AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
BIRMINGHAM attracted a large muster of botanists, and at 
the sectional dinner there was a gathering of about 
eighty members, although not a few well-known seniors were 
conspicuous by absence. Section K at first was not quite 
sure about its President. Most of us felt that Botany could 
nominate a woman if it chose, yet many members felt the 
need of justifying the new departure, which members of other 
Sections were not slow in reminding them of. It would be 
well if future Presidents noted that Committee business went 
on till 10 a.m., not longer, that the Sectional Meetings finished 
each day at a timely hour, and that there was a gentle but 
firm conduct of affairs in general from the Presidential chair. 
Miss Sargent’s address, a historical summary of the develop- 
ment of botanical embryology since 1870, will be found useful 
by botanists who do not specially follow that particular branch, 
which has made great progress and has exerted much influence 
on the development of the whole science. 
The most noteworthy of the more general papers was that 
‘On the Nature of Life’ by Professor Reinke (Kiel). He 
protests against the view that life can be interpreted mechanic- 
ally, and maintains that although the laws of energy are 
valid in many elementary processes of the organism, there is 
an invisible string or chain—the life-principle—that maintains 
order among the various processes. This principle is no 
force or power, it is a principle of succession, of order, and 
of harmony. 
Maritime vegetation gave origin to several interesting 
papers. Professor Oliver, in dealing with the distribution of 
Suada fruticosa on shingle banks, described how the plants 
remained practically still, while the shingle bank was carried 
by waves through the zone of Sueda, which thus assumed a 
new position. (This is part of a larger investigation which has 
recently been outlined in the ‘ Transactions of the Norfolk 
and Norwich Naturalist Society,’ Vol. IX., page 485, 1913.) 
The maritime plant-formations on the Norfolk coast and the 
sand-dunes on Anglesey were also subjects for papers. 
‘River Development and its Influence on Plant Distribu- 
tion, by A. R. Horwood proved a suggestive paper for the 
biological geologist or geographer. 
The variations in flower structure in Stellaria graminea, by 
A. S. Horne, and the juvenile flowering in Eucalyptus, by 
Professor Weiss, dealt with other aspects of plant life. 
The new branch of genetics was represented by Dr. Gates 
on mutation and Mendelian splitting, and by Colonel Rawson on 
variation of structure and colour of flowers under controlled 
illumination. 
Naturalist, 
