212 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [NVOG XXXII. 
for December, 1897, gives additional corroboration of the former 
claim, since he shows that the secretion digests fibrin in the pres- 
ence of one per cent. hydrocyanic acid, and that its enzyme retains its 
digestive activity when kept for several weeks in pure glycerine. 
His studies do not reach to the secretion of the necessary acid, 
which, in one species at least, is present in the liquid of unopened 
pitchers, and therefore is not the result of stimulation by the pres- 
ence of foreign bodies. 
Primitive Angiosperms.— From a morphological study of Naias 
and Zannichellia,’ Professor Campbell shows that both anthers and 
ovules are axial structures, approaching, as he believes, more closely 
to the sporangia of Pteridophytes than do those of any other angio- 
sperm, and he seems inclined to look upon these genera as standing 
nearer to the diverging point of Isoetacez and monocotyledons 
than do most representatives of the latter group. 
New Species of Pectis. — Mr. M. L. Fernald, of the Gray Herba- 
rium, contributes to the knowledge of Mexican plants by publishing 
in vol. xxiii, no. 5, of the Proceedings of the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences a paper on some rare and undescribed plants col- 
lected at Acapulco by Dr. Edward Palmer in 1894, and a systematic 
study.of the genus Pectis, including species of the United States as 
well as Mexico. Of this*genus, Z. Lessingii, P. prostrata, var. cylin- 
drica, and var. urceolata, P. sinalensis, P. depressa, P. capillaris, vat. 
paucicapitata, P. filipes, var. subnuda, P. Pringlei, P. Rosei, P. elongata, 
var. Schottii, P. ambigua, and P. linifolia, var. marginalis are described 
as new. 
Botanical Notes. — Botanists will be interested in knowing that 
the herbarium and notes of the late M. S. Bebb, a collection invalu- 
able for any systematic study of North American willows, have been 
purchased by the Field Columbian Museum of Chicago. 
An article on “The North American Genus Sarracenia,” illus- 
trated by a reproduction of a photograph of S. Chelsoni (S. rubra X 
purpurea), is to be found in Gartenwelt, of Berlin, of Dec. 26, 1897- 
Students of European botany, who have found difficulty in resign- 
ing themselves to the use of one name for the terra-cotta-flowered 
and blue-flowered forms of the poor man’s weather-glass, which they 
1D. H. Campbell, Contributions to Biology from the Hopkins Seaside Labora- 
tory of the Leland Stanford Junior University. XI, A Morphological Study of 
Naias and Zannichellia. Reprinted from Proceedings of the California Academy 
of Sciences, 3d ser., Bot., vol. i. San Francisco, Cal., 1897. 61 pp. 5 pl. 
bal 
