1867-98.] 4 2 9 



Creator's handiwork. Such are the elaters found in the 

 capsules of liverworts. These are minute spirally coiled springs 

 which are let loose with an explosion when the capsule bursts, 

 and by their coiling and uncoiling serve to scatter the spores. 



The sphagna or bog-mosses are quite a distinct group, and 

 to them is owing the growth of the peat in bogs. They are so 

 constructed as to form a sponge which pumps up the moisture 

 to the surface of the tussocks in which they grow. They 

 possess no roots but rise or fall with the sott surface, and from 

 the detritus beneath the peat is formed. 



All these plants are cellular and do not possess vessels for 

 which reason they cannot resist drought and maintain their 

 rigidity like other plants. Their office is to soak up and retain 

 moisture. In dry times they collapse and curl up, but unlike 

 withered phanerogamic plants will revive again quickly when 

 rain comes without being destroyed. 



This faculty of reviving again when soaked is an advantage 

 to the student as specimens may be laid aside after collecting 

 for many months to be soaked out again and examined at 

 leisure. It is strange that this interesting class of plants has 

 been so much neglected in this country. The lecturer 

 recommended as the best portable and thoroughly reliable book 

 on the subject Dixon's Handbook of British Mosses, and bir 

 Edward Fry's shilling handbook as an introductory work. 



A note was contributed by George M'Lean on fasciation 

 in plants, describing the general characteristics of the 

 abnormality, and notifying its common occurrence in cultivated 

 plants, and those grown in ground which has been excessively 

 manured, especially in the succulent shoots of asparagus, 

 cabbage, lettuce, and the ash tree, also of its inheritance 

 through seed as in the cauliflower. He showed specimens of 

 fasciated orange lily stems, being an unusual case of occurrence 

 01 the abnormality in stems from the same root two years in 

 succession ; also gave a list of many plants recorded as having 

 been observed with this monstrosity. 



