242 Reent Literature. [April, — 
following account is extracted by the author from Dr. Hooker’s 
work: “The Welwitschia is a woody plant, said to attain a 
century in duration, with an obconic trunk about two feet long, 
of which a few inches rise above the soil, presenting the appear- 
ance of a flat two-lobed, depressed mass, sometimes (according to 
Dr. Welwitsch) attaining fourteen feet in circumference (?), and 
looking like a round table. When full grown it is dark-brown, 
hard, and cracked over the whole surface (much like the burnt 
crust of a loaf of bread; the lower portion forms a stout tap- 
root, buried in the soil, and branching downwards at the end. 
grown, one corresponding to each lobe; these are quite flat, 
linear, very leathery, and split to the base into innumerable thongs 
that lie curling upon the surface of the soil. Its discoverer 
describes these same two leaves as being present from the earliest 
condition of the plant, and he assures me that they are in fact 
developed from the two cotyledons of the seed, and are persistent, 
being replaced by no others. From the circumference of the 
ovule contained in a compressed utricular perianth. The mature 
cone is tetragonous, and contains a broadly-winged fruit in each 
scale.” 
Barrois’ EMBRYOLOGY oF NEMERTEAN Worms!.—The author 
of this work is well known for his labors on the developmental a 
young are in some cases (though not in those mentioned by the 
author) related in form to those of the true Annelids, being 5°87 . 
mented. M. Barrois concludes from a study of the developmen 
of a number of genera (Lineus, Amphiporus, Tetrastemma, Poña, 
1 Mémoire sur f Embryologie des Némertes. Par M. JULES BARROIS. ( Annales des 
Sciences Naturelles, Sixtième Série. Tome vi. Paris, 1877.) 8°, pp- 23% 
12 plates. 
with 
