314 Scientific Intelligence. 



giving 1784 as the date of L'Heritier's publication: that fascicle 

 of the Stirpes Novce bears the date of 1785. He got the plant 

 from the English gardens, to which it came from Bartram, and 

 took up the name under which, doubtless, it came to him. 

 Between a wrong and a right form of the same name, under the 

 same date, there is no question which should be employed. 



The genus being anomalous in Hammcidacece, and having a 

 woody stem, containing plenty of berberin, our authors opine 

 that the genus should be transferred to the Barberry family. 

 But the floral characters would be far more incongruous there ; 

 and it would be carried away from Hydrastis, which has the same 

 yellow coloring matter and also contains berberin. A. g. 



3. Leerboek der Planten-physiologie, door Hugo de Veies. 

 Amsterdam: Brinkman, 1880. pp. 300, 8vo. — This is the physio- 

 logical and histological part of the Leerboek der Plantenkunde, 

 i. e., the Botanical Text Book of Oudemans and the present 

 author, with which the Netherland students are highly favored. 

 It is out of print ; but when the expected new edition appears, it 

 would be well if' some one would translate it into English. For 

 Professor de Vries is as excellent in exposition as in research. 

 We turn to this volume just now because the author is one of the 

 most notable investigators of plant-movements, and was among 

 the first to indicate the correlation of these movements with 

 growth. If we rightly remember, he was at first inclined to 

 regard the movements as a phenomenon of growth. But he was 

 too good an observer to rest in that opinion, the total improba- 

 bility of which must be manifest upon a survey of the whole 

 field. For obvious reasons, visible movements would in general 

 be manifested only in growing or freshly grown organs, and vary- 

 ing turgor of the protoplasm of the cells concerned, which causes 

 the visible movements, must needs go along with growth. But 

 when the tendril of a ISicyos incurves or coils promptly upon a 

 light touch, straightens after a brief interval, and coils again 

 upon renewed touch, and when as a result of repeated irritation, 

 the organ becomes weak and flabby instead of rigid, one would 

 say this is no more the result of alternate growths on the two 

 sides than are the movements to and fro of the leaflets of Desmo- 

 dium gyrans. As De Vries states it, while growth and turgor 

 may be intimately associated, in very many cases there is no per- 

 manent elongation of the part, but only a temporary lengthening 

 due simply to increase in turgor ; that in others, when accom- 

 panied by growth, the latter is insufficient to account for the 

 wide movements ; and that in still other cases, where there is no 

 recognizable growth, the movements are attributable to varia- 

 tions in turgor alone. He suggests, in continuation, that "the 

 elongation which cell-walls undergo in these movements through 

 turgor generally, may exert an influence upon intussusception by 

 which new solid molecules are thrust in between previous existing 

 ones in the direction in which elongation has taken place ; conse- 

 quently the elongation, at first caused by turgor only, may after- 



