peesident's addeess. 35 



on a new classification, and on the Terminology of the Monoco- 

 tyledonous plants stands out as a brilliant exception to the 

 other work of the past year. There has been a large amount 

 of determining new plants and arranging collections, but with 

 this exception, nothing to make the year remarkable. What 

 the influence of this new classification may have on the evolution 

 theory it is too soon to see. Mr. Bentham proposes an entirely 

 new arrangement of the orders of Endogens^ which he believes 

 to be more in accordance with their generic affinities and the es- 

 sential points of their structure than any at present in use. He 

 proposes to classify Endogens under four series, namely, — 



I. Epigynce, flowers with a double, usually petaloid perianth, 

 ovary usually inferior, syncarpous. 



II. Coronariece, flowers with a double, usually petaloid peri- 

 anth, ovary superior, almost always syncarpous. 



III. Nudiflorce, flowers usually achlamydeous, or with a dry 

 perianth, ovary mostly apocarpous. 



IV. Glumales, Perianth replaced by membranous scales, (pales 

 or lodicules) ovary always uniovular. 



Lindley, in his '' Yegetable kingdom," proposed the separation 

 of a distinct class, Bictyogens, for certain genera with reticulate 

 venation, a division generally rejected. Fries (1835) taking the 

 perianth established four primary divisions, partially corres- 

 ponding to those here adopted. Brongniart (1843) relied on the 

 nature of the albumen for a re-arrangement of the Dicotyledons 

 and Monocotyledons. From this, however, serious exceptions 

 detract. Other characters have been considered important by 

 different botanists, but none strictly followed out in detail. The 

 classification of Mr. Bentham is recommended as combining prac- 

 tical convenience along with supposed natural affinities. 



In Physiological Botany, Professor Burden Sanderson, M.D., 

 has made some important observations on the electricity of leaves, 

 and the localization of the electricity of certain portions of them. 

 He found that, as in the muscles of animals, an electrical cur- 

 rent exists in the leaf of the Bionoca muscipula, the Venus' Fly- 

 trap, in its uncxcited state, and that, during excitation, \\\e 

 current is reduced in intensity or undergoes a negative variation. 



