132 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vou. XXXII. 
table anatomy either the wall or the living contents of the so-called 
cell must be renamed, he would retain the name cell for the former, 
designating the cytoplasm and nucleus as a corpuscle, believing 
that in this way botanical and zoological terminology may be 
brought into harmony most readily. 
The Septate Leaves of Dicotyledonous Plants. — M. John Bri- 
quet, in the Bulletin of the Botanical Laboratory of the University of 
Geneva, for June, 1897, gives an interesting summary of his recent 
studies on certain of the plants possessing the foliar septa first re- 
corded by Guettard in 1747, and for many monocotyledous genera and 
the single dicotyledonous genus Villarsa, examined in detail by Duval- 
Jouve in 1873. Tothese M. Briquet now adds species of the um- 
belliferous genera Ottoa, Crantzia, and Tiedemannia. With Duval- 
Jouve, he concludes that the diaphragms.or septa serve to increase 
considerably the solidity of construction of the leaf without interfering 
with the free circulation of gases in its intercellular spaces. While 
the majority of plants possessing these structures are aquatic or 
subaquatic, Ziedemannia teretifolia is shown to be amphibious and 
to possess admirable adaptations to existence during alternating 
periods of extreme wet and drought. 
The Photosynthetic Organs of Asparagee. — Though, as is 
too frequently the case with students of vegetable anatomy, Pro- 
fessor Reinke has no thought of a monograph of this interesting 
group, his recent study of the cladodia of Asparagus, Ruscus, 
.Danz, and Semele? contains much that is of interest to the system- 
atist, and justifies the conclusion that these aberrant genera are 
really derivatives of the leafy Siliacezx. I 
= New Hardy Nymphæas. — In the Revue Horticole, of Paris, for 
Nov. 16, 1897, M. André describes three new hardy Nymphæas of 
the odorata type, — W. gloriosa, N. Eilisiana, and N. odorata exgui- 
sita, — which have recently originated as seedlings under the hands 
of M. Latour-Marliac, whose beautiful seedlings and hybrids of 
American pond lilies are now known wherever this attractive class of 
aquatics is cultivated. T 
Flora of Africa. — To the many recent publications on the African 
flora is now added a list in which the botanists of the Brussels Gar- 
den propose to publish rapidly the new species and interesting facts 
brought out in the examination of the collections they are now 
1 Reinke, Die Assimilationsorgane der Asparageen. Eine kritische Studie zur 
Entwickelungslehre. /ahrbiicher f. wiss. Bot., Bd. xxxi, Heft 2, 207—272, f. 26. 
