Ixxxiv PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



of the cultivated vine, M. Prillieux on the vegetation of Orchids, 

 M. Blondeau and M. Paul Bert on the motion of sensitive plants, 

 besides many others of real interest, although on small matters — 

 not to mention new classifications and speculations either quite 

 unmeaning or, like M. Ch. Fermond's six Phytogens the develop- 

 ments of which are supposed to form the basis of the structure of 

 Dicotyledons, about as fanciful as Haeckel's fundamental forms. 



In Cryptogamy Mr. Currey has kindly supplied me with the 

 following note on MM. Bornet and Thuret's interesting researches 

 on the impregnation of Florideae, in the * Annales des Sciences 

 Naturelles.' The different parts which conjointly form the cystocarp 

 constitute the female organ in the Floridese ; their number and 

 arrangement vary much in different tribes, but amidst all the 

 varieties of form and structure one character at least seems con- 

 stant : this is the presence of a little appendage of a peculiar nature, 

 to which the authors have given the name of trichogyne, because it 

 always assumes the form of a more or less elongated hair, and is 

 the essential organ of impregnation. This operation is effected by 

 the copulation of the corpuscles produced by the antheridia with 

 this trichogyne ; and the result is the development of the capsular 

 fruit or cystocarp. The process is traced by the authors in several 

 tribes ; but the details are complicated, and would not be intelligible 

 without the figures. The general result, however, is that three prin- 

 cipal modifications may be distinguished : impregnation is almost 

 direct in the Nemalieae, where the cystocarp grows from the very 

 base of the trichogyne ; in the other tribes the cells destined to form 

 the spores are distinct from those which support the trichogyne, 

 and are only impregnated indirectly ; in Dudresnaya the im- 

 pregnating apparatus is quite detached from the fructificatory one, 

 and a kind of double impregnation takes place, the details of which 

 are extremely curious. Some remarks on these observations, modi- 

 fying in some respects the views of MM. Bornet and Thuret, are 

 given by De Bary in the ' Botanische Zeitung.' 



The following is Mr. Currey's analysis of a paper of Mr. E. Roze, 

 which has also appeared in a recent number of the ' Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles,' and is evidently a translation from the German ; 

 but I have been unable to ascertain whether it has or has not been 

 published in the original. The author's observations led him to the 

 conclusion that if the prolongation of the pollen-tube in phsenogams 

 has no other result than that of conveying the fecundating matte- 

 to the embryo-sac, the antherozoid in cryptogams ought for its part 



