420 



The Museum Gazette 



Grew, on Trunks. — The following, which, like the preceding, we 

 take from Tregaski's catalogue, may be of service to some of our 

 readers, Nehemiah Grew was a remarkable man. His descriptions, 

 and the illustrations which accompany them, are very quaint> but they 

 are truthful and valuable. 



205 GREW (Nehemiah) The Comparative Anatomy of Trunks, together 

 with an Account of their Vegetation grounded thereupon. Sm. 8vo, First 

 Edition, 19 large folding copperplates of sections of branches, trunks, &c, 

 as seen through a microscope, original sheep, 21s 1675 

 *«* Read before the Royal Society, February 25th, 1674-5, and June 17th, 1675, of which 

 Society the author was a Fellow, and later the Secretary. He was one of the most eminent 

 of vegetable physiologists, and is said to have been the first to observe sex in plants. 



Smut of Corn. — According to Brefeld, the well-known German 

 botanist, the spores of barley and wheat smut infect the plant only 

 through the flower. In most instances the spores are dispersed by 

 wind, occasionally they are carried along with pollen by butterflies. 

 Upon alighting on the stigma the spores germinate and penetrate the 

 ovule, where they remain until the following season. If seed infected 

 in this manner is sown, the fungus grows up with the plant, and 

 ultimately produces the characteristic black powdery mass in the ear 

 instead of grain. - 



Absorptive Power of Mosses. — Csercy has recently demonstrated 

 that many common mosses absorb about six times their own weight of 

 water in less than one minute, but require a week to give it all up again. 



EGGS.— It is asserted that we import per annum fifty-six eggs per 

 head for the population of Great Britain, and that the cost of foreign 

 eggs and poultry taken together reached in 1900 nearly six millions 

 and a half sterling. 



A German naturalist has recently discovered hairs of mammals in 

 amber (fossil resin). Amber containing insects may be seen in most 

 museums. 



A species of frog from the Cameroons measures no less than 

 10 inches in length of head and body. It has been appropriately 

 named " Nana goliath. y/ 



