NOTES ON EECENT RESEARCH. 



513 



the tribe Ccesaljjinlece of the order Lejjuminosce. Linnjeus inchided this 

 plant within the genus Guilandina ; Lamarck hrst separated it in 1783, 

 giving it the name of Gymnocladus canadensis. At present Guilandina 

 is only a subgenus of the genus CcBsalyinia. A native of Canada, it was 

 introduced into European cultivation in the first half of the eighteenth 

 century. Andre speaks of its being distributed throughout a large part of 

 North America. The tree has an erect stem attaining a height of 80 

 metres and a circumference of more than 2 metres ; the bark is blackish- 

 grey ; the leaves are 40 cm. to a metre long, bipinnate, composed of 

 glabrous, ovate, acute, alternating leaflets, which turn bright yellow in 

 autumn. The flowers are in short terminal racemes, with greyish -white 

 petals, regular in shape, and slightly cottony. The generic name is due 

 to the tree's appearance in winter ; the shortened, and by no means 

 numerous, branches giving it a very bare appearance. Its hard, fine- 

 grained, pink-coloured timber is highly esteemed by ebony-workers. 

 G. sinensis is another species from China, distinguished by its smaller and 

 pink flowers. Gymnocladus likes a deep, stifiish soil. It may be propa- 

 gated by suckers or by means of the roots ; pieces 12 to 15 cm. long should be 

 planted in very light soil kept constantly moist ; they do not usually 

 shoot the first year ; it is the same with the seeds, which often only 

 germinate the second year. — W. C. W. 



Anatomy of Leaf and Axis. 



Leaf and Axis, Anatomy of, in some Crotalariae. (" Vergleichend- 

 anatomische Untersuchungen von Blatt und Achse einiger Genisteen 

 Gattungen aus der Subtribus der Crotalarieen Bentham- Hooker "). By 

 Georg Cohn aus ^Yirsitz {Belli, Bot. Cent. bd. x. ht. 8, pp. 525-561). — ■ 

 In addition to the ordinary Papilionaceous characters, the genera 

 studied show the following peculiarities, namely : — A distinct centric 

 type of leaf, no spongy parenchyma mth large intercellular spaces, no 

 internal secretory organs, no external glands ; small needle-shaped to 

 prismatic crystals of calcium oxalate are sometimes produced. The 

 stomata of Bafnia are surrounded by 3-6 " neighbour-cells." The nerves 

 of Borbonia leaves are enclosed on both bast and wood sides by scleren- 

 chyma plates. The cork formation varies, as also the structure of the 

 pericycle, which may consist of isolated groups of bast-fibres or of a 

 united and continuous mechanical ring. The plants investigated, and of 

 which a short account is given, belonged to the following genera : — 

 Borbonia 6 sT^ecies, Bafnia 15 si^., Eucldora 1 sp., Lotononis 24 sp., Bothia 

 1 sp., Lebeckia 10 sp., Viborgia 3 sp. A tabular view is given of the 

 anatomical conditions of the leaf in the species investigated. — G. F. S.-E. 



The Middle Lamella. 



Lamella, the Middle, its Origrin and Nature. By Ch. E. Allen 

 (Bot. Gaz. xxxii. pp. 1 34, No. 1). — After a discussion upon previous 

 observers and theories to account for the origin and use of the middle 

 layer between cells of a tissue, it appears that Dippel first discovered that 

 it was not cellulose (1898). Fremy gave the name pectose to a substance 



