PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 673 
then descends to security and darkness. When the tide recedes it rises to the 
light. Even the uncongenial surroundings of a tea-cup and a laboratory fail 
to break this habit; for in these surroundings its uprisings and down-lyings 
keep time with the tides. 
To one who has scrutinised with perplexed mind these mysteries of biology 
the speculation may be permitted that light and darkness may work these 
wonders through the control of chemical agents such as oxydases. But though 
it be legitimate to make a speculation of this kind it is idle to hunt the 
unknown to the death without the lethal weapon of experiment, and so I leave 
it for the present unpursued, and with it my Address. We have it on the 
authority of a poet and philosopher that to the traveller on a lonely road each 
bush becomes a bear, and I am not oblivious of the fact that oxydases have 
obtruded themselves with a certain obstinacy in the course of my Address. 
Nevertheless, obsession has its uses and significance, for it is the after-effect of 
enthusiasm; and though I have dealt, perhaps at undue length, with special 
problems and with suggestions, I venture to think that I have made out 
my case for the opportuneness of an entente cordiale between Physiology and 
Mendelism. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. On the Blechnum-Woodwardia-Doodya Series of Ferns; with Re- 
marks on the various Phyletic Origin of Indusia in the Filicales 
Lantern. By Professor F. O. Bower. 
2. The Upper Devonian Beds of Kiltorcan, Co. Kilkenny: The Stem of 
Archzopteris Hibernica Forbes Sp. By Professor T. Jounson, D.Sc. 
The genus Archzopteris has been recorded from the Upper Devonian beds of 
Kiltorean (Co. Kilkenny), N.E. Scotland, Bear Island, N.E. America, Central 
Europe, &c., but has been hitherto known only by its fine isolated sterile and 
fertile fronds. ‘The Department of Agriculture and ‘Technical Instruction 
receatly authorised a re-examination of the fossil beds at Kiltorcan, now un- 
happily being demolished for road-mending. The author, with Mr. I. Rogers, 
spent a week this summer in quarrying the beds, and found several specimens of 
stems of Archzopteris, with the basal parts of the fronds attached. The stem, 
3 cm. wide, winged by the decurrent bases of the leaves, shows ridges correspond- 
ing to the grooves on the adaxial side of the sheathing stipular base of the 
frond. One or two specimens, Marattiaceous in habit, are strikingly suggestive of 
Caulopteris Lockwoodi from the Upper Devonian beds of New York (Gilboa), as 
figured by Dawson. In other specimens the internodes, as much as 5 cm. long, 
are more clearly marked. It is possible that these stems, with longer internodes. 
belong to Sphenopteris Hookeri, Bailey. 'The stems were found in the same slabs 
as the foliage, but naked rachides only were found in actual continuity with 
the stem. 
3. Alethopteris Foliage with Seed (Trigonocarpon). 
By Professor T. Jounson, D.Sc. 
The slabs show typical casts of the seed of Z'rigonocarpon, 2 cm. wide, 3 cm. 
long. They are roughly comparable to a plum-stone in appearance, but are beaked 
and regularly ridged. In one case the cast of the seed appears to be connected 
with a pinna of Alethopteris lonchitica, carrying pinnules on one side only, the 
seed being attached to the other, apparently otherwise, naked side. In another 
case the seed is better shown with typical Alethupteris foliage at its base. 
The specimens tend to confirm the view held by many palobotanists that 
Alethopteris is the foliage and JZ'rigonocarpon the seed of Pteridosperm 
Medullosa. The material was obtained this summer in the coal-beds of 
Killenaule, Co. Tipperary, by Mr. I. Rogers, collecting for the Geological 
Survey of Ireland and the Royal College of Science, Dublin, 
1912. = x 
