Nov. 27, 1879] 



NATURE 



93 



Arctic expedition in the Wilhm Barents, He edited for the 

 Hakluyt Society an account of the three voyages of William 

 Barents. A daily contemporary confounded Lieut. Beynen with 

 the well known Arctic explorer, Lieut. Tayer, who, we are glad 

 to say, is alive and as well as ever. 



Recent advices from Japan state that the port of Gensan in 

 Corea has been opened to Japanese traders. The Japanese, 

 however, appear to have been more anxious to obtain the opening 

 of Nikaw-a, a more important place, and about nineteen miles 

 from the capital, Hanyang (Seoul). The Coreans refused to 

 concede this point, probably on account of a sacred character 

 attaching to the road which separates the two. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES 

 Oospores of "Volvox minor."— Dr. Kirchner, in the 

 recent part of Cohn's "Beitrage zur Biologie der Pilanzen," 

 describes the germination of the oospores, and in this supple- 

 ments the important contribution made by Cohn himself to our 

 knowledge of this interesting plant in the first volume of the 

 same work. The first appearance of germination was in Feb- 

 ruary. The contents of the oospores during a rapid swelling 

 out of the endospore, made their appearance through the rup- 

 tured exospore, and soon presented a sphere-shaped body, which 

 then divided into two portions, these being perpendicular to one 

 another. The newly-formed cells so separate from one another 

 that they hang together by their ends. These ends form the one 

 pole of the later-to-be-developed ball-like colony ; the other 

 pole is afterwards closed in, when the maximum of the cells is 

 attained. Each oospore thus gives rise through cell division, 

 followed by the characteristic cell displacement, to a new volvox 

 colony. The fact of V. minor being dioecious was given as a 

 character to distinguish it from V. globator, but this, according 

 to the author, does not hold true ; both colonies seem to pass 

 through a purely female stage and afterwards through a male 

 stage, each colony being bisexual. 



H Cedar of Lebanon in Cyprus. — Sir Samuel Baker, in his 

 late residence in this island, has been fortunate in bringing to 

 light the existence of this tree, or a variety of it, according to 

 Sir J. D. Hooker. It seems the monks of Trooditissa Monastery 

 assured the former that the " chittim-wood " of Scripture, a kind 

 of pine, grew in the mountains near Krysokus. Trusty 

 messengers having been despatched in search thereof, they 

 brought back specimens of a cedar, with dense foliage and a 

 superior quality of wood. Sir J. Hooker, to whom the speci- 

 mens were forwarded, after a careful examination, finds that this 

 tree differs from the true cedar of Lebanon in having shorter 

 leaves and smaller female cones, with other slight differentia- 

 tions. He names it, therefore, Cedrus liiani, var. brevifblia, a 

 short botanical account of which, along with Sir Samuel's letter, he 

 laid before the Linnean Society at their last meeting. In his letter 

 Sir S. Baker further hints that a variety of cypres; some thirty 

 feet high and seven feet girth, with a cedar-coloured wood, and 

 powerfully aromatic scent of sandal-wood, in his opinion, is the 

 celebrated "chittim-wood." He asks : " Why should Solomon 

 have sent for cedar, which is so common in Asia Minor?" 

 Another hard-wooded cypress, of twenty feet high, yields an 

 intensely hard wood resembling Lignum vita. 



New Genus of Myriafod. — In the October number of the 

 American Naturalist Mr. J. A. Ryder describes and figures a 

 new genus allied to the little myriapod described some years 

 since by Sir John Lubbock as Pauropus. This new American 

 form is found in moist situations under sticks and decaying 

 vegetable matter. It is called Lurypauropus spinosus, receiving 

 its generic name in reference to its great relative width. The 

 body is composed of six segments, po.-sibly of seven. The head 

 is partly free, the surface of the head and other segments is 

 covered with small tubercles or spines. Two pairs of legs are 

 attached to each of the second, third, fourth, and fifth segments, 

 which, with a single pair on the first segment, makes nine pair 

 in all. The legs are completely concealed in life by the lateral 

 expansions of the body segments. The oral region seems to be 

 very similar to that in Pauropus. There is no evidence of 

 tracheal openings. Eyes seem to be absent. The antenna? are 

 five-jointed, inserted close together at the front of the head, and 

 are branched. The outer branch bears two of the many-jointed 

 filaments, between the bases of which arises a pedicel surmounted 

 by an ovoid semi-transparent body with linear sepal-like pro- 

 cesses clasping it much as in Pauropus pcauiuulatus. The length 



is one-twentieth of an inch, and the habitat Fairmount Park, 

 Eastern Penna. 



Zostera Marina. — A. Engler, in a recent number of the 

 Botanische Zeitung (October 10), has published some interesting 

 observations on the fertilisation and growth of the sea grass 

 growing at Kiel. He pronounces Hofmeister's observations on 

 the fertilisation of Zostera as incorrect, but corroborates those of 

 Clavaud (published in the Botanische Zeitnns; for August). At 

 first it is true that the thread-like stigma lies on the neighbouring 

 anther lobes, mostly those of two different anthers ; next the 

 style elevates itself, and so the stigma comes out of the narrow 

 slit in the sheath, and receives the pollen given out by some of 

 the older spadices. After fertilisation, the thread-like stigmas 

 disappear, and at the same moment will be found clusters of as 

 yet unopened anthers around the stigmaless gyncecia, these now 

 having fertilised ovules. This was probably the stage observed 

 by Hofmeister when he described the fertilisation as taking place 

 inside the unopened inflorescence. Certainly the anther-lobes are 

 not at this stage always emptied of their contents, and certainly 

 when this emptying takes place the gyncecia are often beyond the 

 power of being fertilised. The conditions of the buds in Zostera also 

 specially engaged Engler's attention, because the sympodial bud 

 system appeared similar to that in many of Aracea?. The main 

 shoot which roots in the mud develops out of the angle of the nodal 

 scale like lower leaves, which, however, soon die off, sterile buds, 

 and then after the formation of four to six internodes in the ground, 

 grows upwards, now developing leaves often a metre long, but 

 never in the same year is the inflorescence observed. The sterile 

 sprouts are found to the right and to the left of the main shoot ; 

 the upper internodes of this latter elongate and erect themselves, 

 but now in the angles of the lower leaves are only fertile buds 

 developed, which lie alternately right and left of the main axis. 

 The first fertile bud is generally quite free, and carries three 

 to four club-shaped bodies sympodially arranged as described 

 by Eichler. The following fertile buds grow for a great while 

 along with the main axis, the axis of growth thus presenting a 

 flattened cone-shaped form with two furrows superimposed on a 

 cylindrical axis. As to the inflorescence, Engler suggests that it 

 is not impossible, but that the Gyncecia and Andrcccia may each 

 represent separate flowers so arranged that male and female 

 flowers of the s mplest type should stand opposite to one another. 

 This, though opposed to the views of Ascherson and Eichler, 

 seems to have some support from the fact that in the case of 

 Spathicarpa ("Flora Brasiliensis," pi. 51), one of the Aracea?, 

 this position of the male and female flowers occurs ; only in 

 this case, there can be no doubt of the fact, as there seems of 

 necessity to be in Zostera, for the Androecia and Gyncecia are in 

 Spathicarpa formed of several sexual leaves. 



The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of the Ctenophora.— 

 Prof. Haeckel, in a recent number of Cosmos (vol. iii. Part 5, 

 August, 1S79), describes a new form which he calls Ctenaria 

 ctenophora, as a connecting-link between the Ctenophora and 

 the Medusa?. This species is figured, but fuller details are 

 promised in the author's "System of the Medusae," which, 

 illustrated with forty plates, is nearly ready for publication. The 

 new form is placed as a craspedote in the order of the Anthome- 

 dusa?, and in the family of theCladonemidee. Accompanying a brief 

 description, there is an interesting paragraph on the " Ontogeny 

 and Phylogeny of the Ctenophores." It would seem highly 

 probable that the Ctenophores are descended from the Cladone- 

 mida?, and that their still earlier ancestors were Hydrozoa allied 

 to Tubularia. Among the newer adaptations, by means of which 

 the Medusa? form of the younger Ctenophore originated, the most 

 important is undoubtedly the change in the method of loco- 

 motion. The Medusa: swim in a spasmodic manner by irregularly 

 contracting their umbrella?, and then driving the water out of the 

 cavity. The easy gliding, swimming movement of the Cteno- 

 phora? is brought about by the vibrations of the little oar- 

 blades which cross over the surface of the eight radial ciliated 

 combs. While this newer form of motion took the place of the 

 former, a number of other changes were immediately brought 

 about according to the laws regulating the correlation of organs. 

 The more important morphological relations were nevertheless, 

 through the conservative power of inheritance, preserved. 1 his 

 interesting form possesses the eight ad-radial thread-cell channels 

 as in Ectopleura, the trichter as in Eleutheria, the oral formation 

 as in Cytceis, the canal-formation as in Cladonema, and the 

 tentacles and tentacular pockets as in Gemmana ; transitory 

 between two classes, it furnishes a new convincing proof of the 

 verity of the doctrines of development. 



