GLASGOW SOCIETY OF FIELD NATUKALISTS. 191 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



By Mr. R H, Paterson. — Six different species of Brittleworts, 

 found in the Clyde Valley, viz., Cliara vulgaris from Bute, Char a 

 fragilis and C. Jlexilis from Fossil Marsh, Char a asjjera from Loch 

 Eil, Chara translucens and C. hlsjrtda from Bowling Moor. These 

 curious plants were at one time included among the Algte. They 

 are now, however, placed in a class by themselves — Characese, 

 intermediate between lichens and mosses. Some, however, are in- 

 clined to rank them as high in the scale as ferns. He also exhibited 

 specimens of parts of the rare Spindle Tree, Euonymus EuroiJaeus 

 and Pyrus aria, var. fennlca, from Innellan. Also the Algae, 

 Melobesia calcarea, M. fascicularis, M. verrucata, and 3L pustulata, 

 all dredged at Innellan in twenty fathoms of water, and Melobesia 

 agariciformis, a very rare and beautiful form, dredged in Roundstone 

 Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, in from eight to ten fathoms of 

 water. He also exhibited some very large specimens of the opercula 

 of a species of mollusc from the Cape of Good Hope, one specimen 

 being several ounces in weight, the operculum of British mollusca 

 seldom weighing more than one or two grains. There was also a 

 fine specimen of the brain coral from the same locality. These were 

 sent by Dr. Watkins, a corresponding member. 



By Mr. Richard M'Kay. — Specimens of the plant Good King 

 Henry, Chenopodium Bonus Henricus, from the Carron Glen, near 

 Kilsyth. 



PAPER READ. 

 Mr. Taylor then read an interesting paper "On the Vegetable 

 Cell." After defining what was understood by the term " cell " in 

 science, he went on to show how the normal round cell, by pressure 

 in various directions, comes to assume the different shapes found in 

 each kind of tissue. The vegetable cell is a mass of protoplasm 

 surrounded by a cell wall, called the cellulose coat. Various changes 

 take place in this cell, the protoplasm gets replaced by cell sap 

 (vacuolation), air replaces this sap, when the cell is virtually dead. 

 Again we have the deposit of cellulose inside the cell wall, producing 

 a striated appearance like bone cells, or it may be in the forms of 

 rings (annular) or like the steps of a ladder (scalariform), etc. He 

 then pointed out how the various theorists accounted for this 

 striated appearance of cells. At the conclusion, he gave a short 



