840 SUMMARY OF CURBENT BESEARCHES RELATING TO 



laid side by side to make an inch in length ; to cover a square inch 

 734,449 would be required ; and to fill the space of a cubic inch 

 629,422,793. Or in terms of the metric system, a row 1 cm. in length 

 would contain 343 spores; a sq. cm. 117,649, and a c.cm. 40,853,607. 

 On measuring the capacity of one of Powers and Weightman's dram 

 morphine bottles he found that it was almost exactly 40 c.cm., there- 

 fore one of the bottles would contain 1,614,144,280 of these spores. 

 The same bottle will hold 10,600 flax seeds, 350 cubeb berries, 

 250 grains of allspice, 66 Cocculus Indicus seeds, 20 nux vomica 

 seeds, 200 canary seeds, 8400 dill seeds, 2900 grains of paradise, 

 1250 hemp seeds, 500 black pepper berries, 661 white pepper berries, 

 3250 stramonium seeds, and 100 pumpkin seeds. It will thus be 

 seen that one hemp seed equals in size 1,291,315 lycopodium spores. 



Node of Equisetum.* — Mr. A. A. Crozier describes the structure 

 of the node of Equisetum arvense. If a section is made lengthwise 

 through a node of a fertile stem, each vascular bundle is seen to 

 divide into two parts, each part uniting with a corresponding part of 

 an adjacent bundle to form one of the bundles of the next internode. 

 If the section be made radially through one of the teeth of the sheath 

 or rudimentary leaves, a bundle is seen to pass down and unite in the 

 node with one of the bundles of the stem. The bundle of the leaf is 

 derived not by a simple separation of a portion of the outer phloem, 

 part of the bundle in the stem, but originates where that bundle 

 begins to divide, and in such a manner that its vessels are continuous 

 with the xylem of the divided bundle. 



Each bundle of the stem, therefore, divides at the node into three 

 parts — two lateral portions, each with xylem and phloem, which by 

 rearrangement continue the bundles of the stem, and a central part 

 which bends outward into the leaf. 



MuscinefE. 

 Development of the Sporangium of FruUania. | — M. Leclerc 

 du Sablon describes the development of this organ in the case of 

 F. dilatata. In an early stage the organ is composed of cells more 

 or less square and arranged regularly in two different directions. 

 The upper part consists of two layers of cells forming a somewhat 

 hemispherical surface, beneath which is the essential part of the 

 sporangium, viz. a somewhat fusiform row of eight cells, distin- 

 guished by larger nuclei, and by their protoplasm being denser and 

 taking a darker stain from hsematoxylin. These are the source 

 of both the spores and the elaters. Each of these cells divides into 

 four by two vertical walls ; the subsequent divisions being in a 

 transverse direction. At a later period the nucleus is seen to divide 

 in some of these cells, but not in others ; and in such a way that a cell of 

 each kind in one row alternates regularly with cells of the other kind in 

 the adjacent rows ; both kinds at the same time increasing in length. 

 Those which do not divide are the mother-cells of the elaters ; those 



■ * Amer. Naturalist, xix. (1885) pp. 502-3 (2 figs ). 

 t Bull. Soe. Bot. Frauce, vii. (1885) pp. 187-91. 



