572 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 618. 



prove of much direct interest to the scientific 

 botanist, who will find much that he can ap- 

 ply to his own science in Professor Charles B. 

 Davenport's ' Animal Morphology in its Kela- 

 tion to Other Sciences,' Professor Alfred M. 

 Giard's ' Present Tendencies of Morphology 

 and its Relations to the Other Sciences,' Pro- 

 fessor Oskar Hertwig's ' Advances and Prob- 

 lems in the Study of Generation and Inherit- 

 ance,' Professor William K. Brooks's ' Indi- 

 vidual Development and Ancestral Develop- 

 ment,' Professor William E, Eitter's 'Place 

 of Comparative Anatomy in General Biology ' 

 and Professor Yves Delage's ' Comparative 

 Anatomy and the Foundations of Morphology.' 

 These stately volumes are issued by Hough- 

 ton, Mifflin & Company, which is a sufficient 

 guarantee of their excellence in type, paper 

 and presswork. 



TWO AND THREE PISTILS IN CASSIA CHAMAECRISTA. 



In the autumn of 1905 I chanced to find a 

 single flower of Cassia chamaecrista with two 

 pistils (carpels), one of normal size and the 

 other much smaller, so small in fact that its 

 ovules had not developed. A few days later 

 while out with a party of students I directed 

 their attention to what I had found, and sug- 

 gested that they hunt for similar cases of two 

 pistils in a flower. It proved not to be a 

 difficult task to find such cases, and in most 

 of those found, both pistils were of normal 

 size. A considerable number of these twinned 

 pistils were secured, and preserved for further 

 examination. They appeared to be normal 

 in every particular. I was especially inter- 

 ested in the discovery of two cases in which 

 there were three pistils in each flower. In 

 one of these cases the three pistils were of 

 approximately equal size. 



If we are right in thinking that the Caesal- 

 piniaceae have probably been derived from 

 Bosaceae by a reduction in the number of 

 carpels (along with other floral modifications) 

 we have in these cases of two and three carpels 

 a reversion to the polycarpellary type. It be- 

 came interesting to know whether these cases 

 were sporadic, or whether there was a tend- 

 ency in these plants to produce more than one 

 carpel. Accordingly, I visited this year the 



station where we found the two- and three- 

 carpelled flowers last year, and again found a 

 considerable number of flowers with two car- 

 pels. None was found with three carpels, 

 though this may have been due to the fact that 

 the search was not as prolonged as last year. 

 It is evident, however, that in this particular 

 colony of these plants there appears to be a 

 tendency to produce bicarpellary flowers. 



engler's pflanzenreich. 



The twenty-third and twenty-fourth fl'ef^en 

 of Engler's ' Pflanzenreich ' are devoted re- 

 spectively to the Halorrhagaceae (by A. K. 

 Schindler) and the Aponogetonaceae (by K. 

 Krause). In the treatment of the first, the 

 author excludes Hippuris, usually included in 

 this family, regarding it as more nearly related 

 to the Santalaceae. Seven genera are retained, 

 viz., Loudonia (with 3 Australian species) ; 

 Halorrhagis (59 species, mostly Australian) ; 

 Meziella (1 Australian species) ; Laurenibergia 

 (18 species, from New Zealand and Australia 

 to tropical Asia, Africa and America) ; 

 Proserpinaca (2 North American species) ; 

 Myriophyllum (a cosmopolitan genus of 36 

 species) ; Qunnera (33 species from Africa to 

 New Zealand). The second family {Apono- 

 getonaceae) is a small one containing but one 

 genus {Aponogeton), which includes 22 species 

 ranging from Southern Africa to tropical 

 Asia and North Australia. In both Heften 

 the numerous illustrations are excellent. 



Charles E. Bessey. 



The Univebsity of Nebraska. 



CHEMICAL ABSTRACTS. 

 A YEAR ago an effort was made to secure 

 the cooperation of the London Chemical So- 

 ciety, the Society of Chemical Industry and 

 the American Chemical Society in the publi- 

 cation of an abstract journal which should 

 cover the whole field of chemistry and which 

 should go to the members of each society. A 

 plan for such a cooperation was carefully 

 worked out and submitted to the two English 

 societies, but the Society of Chemical Indus- 

 try finally decided that it was impossible for 

 them to tal?:e part in such a cooperative enter- 

 prise. 



