260 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Proteids as Reserve-food Materials.*— M.C.Potter has examined 

 a large number of leaf-buds, rhizomes, tubers, corms, and bulbs, 

 with, a view to determine the presence of proteid-granules or 

 crystalloids. In none of them, with only one exception, did he find 

 any, although starch was present in abundance ; but this may have been 

 due in some cases to their having already germinated. The exception 

 was in bulbs of Narcissus poeticus, where proteid-granules were formed 

 of relatively large size, and apparently only one in each cell. They 

 consisted of an outer hyaline and an inner opaque part, the latter 

 being soluble in dilute potash. They were insoluble in ether, 

 alcohol, acetic acid, or solution of sodium chloride, and were stained 

 orange yellow by iodine. They disappeared soon after the bulb had 

 commenced to grow. 



Leucoplastids.f — A. F. W. Schimper, replying to the opposite 

 view of A. Meyer,J reaffirms his theory that the protoplasm of leuco- 

 plastids is itself used up in the formation of starch, supporting it by 

 the statements that in many plants the leucoplastid crystals occur 

 only in the epidermis where no formation of starch takes place ; and 

 that the crystals eventually entirely disappear in those cells where 

 abundance of starch is formed. That it is the albumen itself which 

 crystallizes, he argues from the fact that protein-crystals are often 

 found in leucoplastids, and from various other considerations. 



Cleistogamous Flowers. § — T. Meehan describes cleistogamous 

 flowers in Nemophila maculata, Impatiens pallida, and Viola sar- 

 mentosa, all of which produce abundance of seeds, no perfect corollas 

 being observed on any of them. Opuntia leptocaulis produced a 

 number of small flower-buds, some of which opened. These resulted 

 in fruits which took a full year to mature, becoming a bright rosy 

 red, but containing no seeds. 



Cultivation of Plants in Decomposing Solutions of Organic 

 Matter. 1 1 — V. Jodin chose for his experiments vegetable debris, or 

 pulverized plants, which were dissolved in distilled water ; on the 

 surface of these were placed the grains of experiment ; as decompo- 

 sition went on the grains germinated and fructified, by assimilating part 

 of the mineral elements and some of the nitrogen of the solution. 

 At the end of three or four months the liquid was found to be limpid 

 and odourless ; on evaporation it left a residue of potash, which 

 appeared to be united to a brown organic body ; on calcination nitric 

 acid could be detected. 



The author gives a table of the weights of material used, from 

 which it is seen that of the primitive nitrogen 35 or 36 per cent, has 

 disappeared ; and concludes by suggesting that the method of experi- 

 ment which he has adopted will be found to be of use in the 

 investigation of certain problems of plant physiology. 



* Proc. Gamb. Phil. Soc, iv. (1883) pp. 331-3. 



t Bot. Ztg., xli. (1883) pp. 809-17. 



% See this Journal, iii. (1883) p. 289. 



§ Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, x. (1883) pp. 119-20. 



II Comptes Kendus, xcvii. (1883) pp. 1506-7. 



