58 GEOBGE JOHN EOMANES iw«h[ 



simile) is rather coarse, the transmission may be con- 

 sidered as passing in any direction from cell or unit, 

 of structure to cell or unit ; and in this case the 

 transmission would be as in Dionasa, but more 

 easily effected in certain lines or directions than in 

 others. It is splendid work, and I hope you are 

 getting on well in all respects. The Mr. Lawless to 

 whom you refer is the Hon. Miss Lawless, as I know^ 

 for she sent me a very good manuscript about the 

 fertilisation of plants, which I have recommended 

 her to send to ' Nature.' 



As for myself, Frank and I have been working 

 like slaves on the bloom on plants, with very poor 

 success ; as usual, almost everything goes differently 

 from what I had anticipated. But I have been abso- 

 lutely delighted at two things : Conn, of Breslau, has 

 seen all the phenomena described by Frank in 

 Dipsacus, and thinks it a very remarkable discovery, 

 and is going to work with all reagents on the fila- 

 ments as Frank did, but no doubt he will know much 

 better how to do it. He will not pronounce whether 

 the filaments are some colloid substance or living 

 protoplasm ; I think he rather leans to latter, and he 

 quite sees that Frank does not pronounce dogmati- 

 cally on the question. 



The second point which delighted me, seeing that 

 half of the botanists throughout Europe have pub- 

 lished that the digestion of meat by plants is of no 

 use to them — (a mere pathological phenomenon as 

 one man says !) — is that Frank has been feeding 

 under exactly similar conditions a large number of 

 plants of Drosera, and the effect is wonderful. On 



