1870.] Botany. 257 



chlorophyll, causing them to move in masses of network rather 

 than in isolated grains ; and this protoplasm is supposed to be the 

 vital and animating part of the cell. 



Climbing Plants. — M. Paul LeVy sends from Nicaragua some 

 interesting observations on climbing plants. Their vitality is some- 

 thing wonderful. M. Levy tried many experiments upon them, and 

 found that burning was almost the only effectual way of destroying 

 them. If the stem is cut, they put out roots from their branches, 

 and if these roots are cut off, they are reproduced even as many as 

 eight times. This extraordinary vitality belongs, probably, only to 

 the climbers of tropical countries, a large number of those observed 

 by M. Levy belonging to the genus Bignonia. Some species of 

 climbers show a preference for particular trees on which to climb, 

 refusing to attach themselves to some kinds, and clinging eagerly to 

 others, in order to reach which they may have trailed for some 

 distance along the ground. Some trees are always entirely des- 

 titute not only of climbers, but of mosses, ferns, orchids, and other 

 epiphytes. All the climbers observed by M. Levy turn from left to 

 right, none from right to left, as has been stated by other observers. 



Alternation of Generation in Fungi. — Some remarkable observa- 

 tions on this subject have recently been made by M. Gabriel Eivet. 

 It was noticed as long since as 1806 by Sir Joseph Banks, that the 

 proximity of the Berberry-tree appears to be a cause of the preva- 

 lence of the disease known as "rust" in the grain-crops of the 

 neighbourhood. It has now been ascertained that one of the Fungi 

 which produce the rust in cereals, the Pueeinia graminis, and the 

 Fungus which causes the well-known orange spots on the leaves of 

 the Berberry, the (Eeidium Berberidis, are in reality different forms 

 of the same plant ; the spores of each form will not reproduce itself, 

 but the other form. In the commune of Grenlis, department of 

 Cote-d'Or, in France, a railway company has recently planted its 

 embankments with Berberry-trees, and immediately afterwards the 

 crops of wheat, rye, and barley in the neighbourhood became infested 

 with rust. A commission being appointed to investigate the sub- 

 ject, reported that wherever the Berberries are found the grain-crops 

 are more or less attacked by rust ; where they do not occur the 

 crops are free, and that the planting of a single bush of Berberry is 

 sufficient to produce the disease where it has never appeared before. 



Variegation of Leaves. — M. Edouard Morren reports some im- 

 portant observations on the variegation of leaves, which he attributes 

 to a kind of disease, capable of being inoculated from one individual 

 to another, and even to a different species. By grafting a variegated 

 plant on another, the infection can be conveyed downwards, no 

 doubt by the circulation of the sap, and can even be carried upwards 

 from a variegated stock to a healthy plant grafted upon it. M. 

 Morren states that the placing of a variegated leaf beneath the bark 



