SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



63 



Metamorphosed Honeysuckle.— Last summer 

 I gathered at two localities in the neighbourhood 

 of Amersham, Bucks, numerous inflorescences of 

 honeysuckle with curiously modified flowers. The 

 corollas were generally about one-third smaller 

 than usual, and in colour green, or green tinged 

 with yellow, or, again, green with lower parts 

 yellow and margins coloured red. The stamens 

 in the green flowers were represented by five green 

 lanceolate leaves, and in the green and yellow 

 flowers these lanceolate leaves were coloured 

 honeysuckle-yellow. These modified stamens bore 

 no trace of anthers or pollen. In the other flowers 

 the stamens were shorter than the corolla, and 

 adherent to this throughout their greater length, 

 the only modification the pistil had undergone in 

 such flowers as these being that the style was much 

 shorter than the stamens. The centre of the green 

 and green-and-yellow flowers was occupied by 

 numerous small green leaves in lieu of the pistil. 

 Two flowers of one inflorescence showed meta- 

 morphosis of the pistil only, which in each case 

 was represented by a comparatively long pedicel 

 bearing several curved filiform leaves surrounding 

 a few ovules, borne apparently at the apex of the 

 pedicel. — C. E. Britton, 35 But/dale Street, London, 

 S.E. 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



E. A. B. (Cowfielcl).— Many thanks for the 

 curious instance of fasciation in the stem of 

 asparagus that you have kindly sent. The curva- 

 ture is due, as you suppose, to the unequal growth 

 (nutation) of the opposite sides of the compound 

 axis. — J. 8. 



W. H., Jun. (Cambuslang). — The curious mal- 

 formation of the calyx of primrose that you send 

 is not uncommon when under cultivation, but is 

 very unusual in the wild state. It illustrates the 

 foliar origin of the calycine segments. — J. 8. 



Miss E. B. (Hailsham).— Your list of orchids 

 found near Beachy Head is an interesting one. 

 We note that it includes Orclrisustulata, Habenaria 

 viridis, and Ophrys fucifera. Of the last named 

 you are good enough to send specimens. All these 

 species have been recorded for the vice-county. 

 With reference to the Stellaria holostea, the aber- 

 rant form, of which you sent a gathering, has not 

 previously come under our notice, and we think it 

 is unusual. On reference to Hooker's " Student's 

 Flora " we find that the blossoms of this species 

 are subject to considerable variations, and think 

 that the departure from the type was due to un- 

 favourable surroundings. The malformation in the 

 cabbage leaf is not unusual, and is known as pro- 

 liferation. It is similar to that of which an illus- 

 tration is given in Science-Gossip, New Series, 

 vol. ii., p. 119.— J. 8. 



F. S. (Niton.) — You are correct in thinking your 

 specimens are Equisetum maximum. They are 

 interesting in that the two fertile stems bear leaves, 

 and thus show the transition between those species 

 in which the barren and fruiting stems are always 

 dissimilar, and those in which they are subsimilar. 

 — J. 8. 



T. A. P. (Habden Bridge). — Your specimen of 

 flowering plant, which would have been more easy 

 to determine if mature, is Cnicus heterophyllus, the 

 "melancholy thistle." Its British distribiition is 

 from Derbyshire northwards. — J. 8. 



STRUCTURAL and PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



CONDUCTED BY HAROLD A. HAIG. 



Abnormal Changes in Embryo-sac— In the 

 embryo-sac of Piperomia (one of the Piperaceae) 

 Mr. D. H. Campbell has found (" Annals of Botany," 

 15, 103-118, 1901) that after all changes previous 

 to fertilisation have taken place there are sixteen 

 nuclei present instead of eight, the usual number 

 in angiosperms. In Piperomia usually eight nuclei 

 fuse to form the endosperm nucleus. One of the 

 male nuclei from the pollen-tube fuses with the 

 nucleus of the egg-cell, but the fate of the other 

 could not be determined. It would be an interesting 

 point to show double impregnation. Mr. Campbell 

 believes that the presence of sixteen nuclei is a 

 primary and not a derived condition. 



Form op Mesophyll-cells in Leap op 

 Pinus. — It is a well-known fact that the mesophyll- 

 cells enclosed by the epidermis and hypodermis in 

 the leaf of Pinus have well-marked " trabeculae " 

 formed on the inner aspect of their walls by the 

 bending in of portions of the wall at an early stage 

 of development, and the subsequent fusion of the 

 adjacent portions of these invaginations ; but it is 

 not so obvious why this should occur. It seems 

 most probable, however, that these trabeculae play 

 the part of increasing the inner surface of the wall, 

 and so materially aiding in assimilation, since 

 many more chloroplasts are able to find room on 

 the wall than would be the case if there were no 

 such folds on the inner surface. Another explana- 

 tion might be offered, viz. that the leaf of Pinus 

 being elongated and very small in any diameter, 

 and the mesophyll-cells large relatively to the 

 dimensions of the leaf section, there would be a 

 tendency to save as much room as possible, in 

 order to get in a number of cells sufficient to carry 

 on assimilation to a proper extent. By this 

 expedient the same number of cells are formed 

 without any decrease in the assimilating surface. 



Nucleus in Cambium-cells. — In cells where 

 the dimensions are fairly uniform all over, such as 

 parenchyma and young meristematic tissue of the 

 apices of buds, we find that the nuclei are more or 

 less rounded or oval, and during the division of 

 the cell usually a well-marked karyokinetic spindle. 

 In the cells of cambium, where we have elements 

 which are very much elongated in one direction as 

 compared with the other, there is nearly always 

 a very elongated nucleus ; in fact quite fusiform at 

 times. It is also very probable that nuclean 

 division is not in these cases accompanied by the 

 marked features of karyokinesis, but that longi- 

 tudinal fusion occurs, the partition wall then 

 appearing between the two fresh-formed nucler. 

 The extreme rapidity of division of the cambial 

 cells would certainly not allow much time for the 

 preparations necessary for the complicated process 

 of karyokinesis. 



Movements op Plasmodia. — The study of the 

 irritability of protoplasm presents some very fasci- 

 nating problems, which, if they could be solved 

 by the rather inadequate methods at present at our 

 command, would afford the biologist, zoologist, and 

 botanist alike great satisfaction. Somehow or 

 other, however, there is always a factor that is 

 either missed or else insufficiently demonstrated, 

 and so the laws governing irritability are con- 

 veniently said to be under the domination of what 

 biologists have been from time to time driven to 



