1867.] Botany, Vegetable Morphology, and Physiology. 239 



" mantle-fluid ; " secondly, the protoplasm of Hugo Mohl ; and 

 thirdly, dispersed chlorophyl corpuscles, other corpuscles, and the 

 cell-nucleus, which is sometimes absent. The primordial utricle, if 

 present, bounds this " mantle-layer," separating it from the cellulose 

 capsule. 



3rd. The movements in the cell result from the action of some 

 cause or other on the fluid part of the mantle-layer, which in its 

 movements carries the viscid " protoplasm " and the suspended par- 

 ticles with it. Molecular movements of minute corpuscles sus- 

 pended in the " mantle-fluid " have other causes to account for 

 them. 



4th. The movements of the mantle-fluid may be recognized 

 either by the movement of suspended granules or of separated frag- 

 ments of the viscid part of the mantle-layer, as in Chara and 

 Hydrocharis. 



5th. Various modifications of the character of the movements 

 and their direction arise from the action of the mantle-fluid on the 

 viscid part of the mantle-layer ; and by the adhesion of the viscid 

 substance to the cellulose wall, the diversion of the current of the 

 " fluid," and production of the viscid matter into filaments. In all 

 cases, however, examined by Professor Keichert, he is convinced 

 that the proximate cause of the apparent movements is the motion 

 of this mantle-fluid, which has been hitherto overlooked ; the cause 

 of the motion of the fluid itself he will not venture to suggest. 

 His chief point deducible from these facts is, that the viscid 

 material is not a contractile protoplasm, and is not the proximate 

 cause of the movements. Professor Schultze discovered a moving 

 band of " protoplasm " along the raphe of Diatoms flowing from the 

 contents of the silicious valves, which he clearly showed caused 

 their locomotion. Professor Keichert would regard this, according to 

 his views above noted, merely as the viscid substance set in motion 

 by a " mantle-fluid," and not as a self- contractile protoplasm. 



Switzerland. — TJie Nature of Anthers. — J. Miiller, the elabo- 

 rator of the Euphorbiacese for De Candolle's 'Prodromus,' has 

 published three brief papers in the 'Mernoires de la Societe de 

 Phys. et d'Hist. Nat. de Greneve,' upon points relative to the anther 

 which fell under his observation in the progress of his work. The 

 first is a case in which the anther had reverted to a leaf, giving 

 evidence that this organ is homologous with a plane lamina, its 

 margins or line of dehiscence answering to the margins of a leaf. 

 The second is upon the trilocular anther of Pachystemon, neatly 

 showing that this (and, by just analogy, the three-celled anther of 

 Ayenia also) is not a combination, but answers to a single leaf. 

 The third exhibits the double flexure in the bud of the apex of the 

 filament in Cephalocroton, the anther remaining upright, as con- 

 trasted with the inverted anthers of Croton. 



