58 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



the protection of the flower before it opens, i. e., there are hve 

 sepals. The talk concluded with an explanation of the terras 

 monoecious and dioecious, illustrated by flowers of alder, poplar 

 and willow, after which the section proceeded to the analysis of 

 Symplocarpiis fcctidns. 

 Adjourned to April i8th. 



Tuesday evening, April iSth. Regular meeting, the Vice Pres- 

 ident in the chair. There being no business the section listened 

 to a talk by Mr. Batchelder, who gave a more particular explana- 

 tion of the spore as the essential factor in the reproductive pro- 

 cess throughout the vegetable kingdom. The microspores known 

 as pollen were then considered, the different modes of their dis- 

 tribution by wind and insects enumerated and the function of the 

 pollen-tube described. 



Adjourned to April 25th. 



Tuesday evening, April 25th. Regular meeting. On account 

 of the absence of many members the meeting was informal. A 

 profitable hour was spent in the analysis of Epigcea repeus, San- 

 giiinaria Canadensis, Honstonia cerulea and a cultivated species 

 of Scylla. 



Adjourned to May 2d. 



Tuesday evening, May 2d. Regular meeting, the Vice Presi- 

 dent in the chair. After routine busrness, Mr. Burnham made an 

 earnest plea in behalf of the mayflower, deploring its wanton de- 

 struction by selfish or thoughtless persons and suggesting that 

 the members of the section do all in their power to arrest its im- 

 pending extinction by instructing their friends and the public as 

 to the proper method of gathering the flowers. The suggestions 

 were approved and a resolution embodying them was adopted by 

 a unanimous vote. 



Mr. Batchelder then gave a talk on the present status of sys- 

 tematic botany as developed by modern evolutionary methods, 

 and particularly- as elaborated in the works of Engler and Prantl, 

 the German authorities, where the sequence of orders and famil- 

 ies is by far the best because the most natural of any yet pro- 



