175 



was directed toward the embryo, and ultimately reached it, the 

 wings were removed from several dozen fruits with embryos in 

 early stages of development. It was expected that the embryos 

 of these fruits would show some signs of malnutrition, but as a 

 matter of fact none did so, showing without doubt that the 

 hypothesis toward the testing of which the experiments were 

 directed was false. It would appear that, if the substances 

 which are formed in the wing are of any use to the embryo, their 

 amount forms no important part of the food supply. It may be 

 possible that there was some compensation of some sort, but 

 that is not very likely. So that for the present we may adhere 

 to the view that these organs serve a useful turn after the close 

 of their development ; and their origin, if this is true, may be 

 explained, so far as our present knowledge takes us, only by the 

 workings of natural selection. The whole subject of the exact 

 function of wings in fruits is open to investigation, for it is clear 

 that the wings which occur in dehiscent fruits cannot be inter- 

 preted in the same fashion as those in indehiscent fruits. 



SHORTER NOTES 

 Note on the " Report of the Brown-Harvard Expedition 

 to Nachvak, Labrador."* — Dr. E. B. Delabarre, of Brown 

 University, in listing the Hepaticae collected on this expedition 

 to Labrador, states that " all seven of the hepatics here named 

 are now reported for the first time, although three of these names 

 can be given as yet only provisionally," and in a later note re- 

 marks, "none of these are reported by the previously-named 

 authorities, nor by W. H. Pearson in his List of Canadian Hepa- 

 ticae '(1890)." The " previously-named authorities " do not appear 

 to include any American students of the Hepaticae and Dr. Dela- 

 barre has evidently overlooked the most complete list of Labra- 

 dor Hepaticae yet published, a list of thirty-one species collected 

 by the late Rev. A. C. Waghorne and Mr. O. D. Allen and pub- 

 lished by Professor Underwood in the Bulletin of the Torrey 

 Botanical Club in 1892 (19: 269). Four out of the seven of 

 Dr. Delabarre's list are reported by Professor Underwood. 



Marshall A. Howe. 



*Bull. Geog. Soc. Phila. 3 : 167-201. 1902. 



