64 



H. MARSHALL WARD. 



THE MORPHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF AN AQUATIC 

 MYXOMYCETE. 



By H. Marshall Ward, M.A., Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge; 

 Assistant Lecturer in Botany, Owens College, and Lecturer in the 

 Victoria University, Manchester. 



[Plates III— IV.] 



During the progress of certain experiments which I instituted during 

 the course of the past winter and spring, in order to obtain information 

 as to the feasibility of employing the electric light in the botanical 

 laboratory, so that demonstrations on the assimilation of green plants 

 might be made independently of the sunlight, of which we obtain so 

 little in Manchester, it became necessary to employ among other 

 plants actively growing Hyacinths ; in order the better to study the 

 effect of the electric light on these, I grew them in nutritive solutions 

 consisting of minerals dissolved in pure water, according to a method 

 devised some years ago by Sachs, and now much used in my laboratory 

 course for teaching purposes. A few fractions of a gram of phosphates, 

 sulphates, and nitrates of calcium, magnesium, and potassium are 

 dissolved in one litre of distilled water, and a trace of common salt is 

 added. All the salts should be chemically pure, and plants may be 

 easily cultivated in the solution for weeks and months, as is now 

 abundantly proved (fig. 1). 



The Hyacinths in question were grown with their bulbs resting on 

 the necks of tall glass jars, cylindrical in shape, and the roots of the 



