704 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



80 feet from the ground, and the author thinks that the object is to 

 preserve the spores from falling to the ground in still weather. The 

 majority would be scattered only on windy days, and obviously with the 

 advantage of easily reaching the higher branches of other trees. In a 

 footnote the suggestion of Mr. F. Darwin is recorded that this may be 

 compared with the " Censer " mechanism found in the fruits of Poppy 

 and other flowering plants. The numerous figures which accompany 

 this paper are all of much interest, and no important point appears to be 

 without an illustration. — B. I. L. 



Honey in Pollen. 



Nectaries, Chemical Proof of Sugar in Pollen-flowers (BeiJi, 

 Bot. Cent. bd. xii. ht. 1, pp. 34-43). — Dr. Rob. Stager gives a series of 

 observations with Hoppe-Seyler's sugar test. He finds that many so-called 

 pollen-flowers, such as the Helianthemum vulgare, Hypericum perfora- 

 tum, Parnassia palustris, Papaver Bhceas, Lysi?nachia vulgaris. 

 Cyclamen persicum, C. europceum, Spiraea Ulmaria, Chcnopodium 

 album, Plantaqo lanceolata, Hop, Hemp, Nettle, and various Grasses, 

 secrete honey. He also mentions that numbers of insects regularly visit 

 the flowers of Grasses. — G. F. S.-E. 



PlLOSTYLES InG.E. 



Pilostyles Ingae (= P. Ulei, Solms Laub.), Monograph of. 



By W. Endriss {Flora, vol. xci. pp. 209-236 ; 29 figs. ; t. xx.).— This 

 is one of the parasitic Phanerogams, whose vegetative body is represented 

 by a fungoid thallus in the tissues of the host-plant ; its mycelium is 

 truly cellular, the chambers of the hypha? being 1 -nucleate ; intracellluar 

 hyphae act as haustoria, while the larger strands are intercellular, some- 

 times from the breakdown of the tissues they traverse. Unlike Bafflesia, 

 it develops its flowers exogenously at the end of a short leafy stem. The 

 fibrovascular bundles are much reduced, and the phloem has no true sieve- 

 tubes. The anatropous ovule has two coats, a micropyle closed by the adna- 

 tion of an outgrowth from the funicle to the exostome, and a typically-consti- 

 tuted embryo-sac. Fertilisation was not observed in cases where the pollen 

 had penetrated ; on the other hand, the oosphere had developed in cases 

 where no pollen-tube was traceable, from which parthenogenesis is con- 

 jectured. Endosperm is of limited amount, and forms a layer of large 

 cells around the embryo, which remains small. Germination was not 

 observed. The actual point of the outgrowth of the thallus, which pierces 

 the surface to give rise to the floral axis, becomes its growing point. — M. 



Tin: Pitchers of Dischidia. 



Pitchers in Dischidia Bafflesiana, Evolution of. Morpho- 

 logical note by Sir W. T. Thisel ton- Dyer, K.C.M.G., CLE., F.R.S. 

 (Ann. Bot. vol. xvi. No. lxii. p. 3(55 ; plates xiv. and x\\). — These 

 interesting pitchers, so entirely different from those of Nepenthes, 

 Sarraccnia, and other insectivorous plants, have long been known to 

 botanists, but the plant itself had not been seen alive in Europe until 

 introduced to Kew from the Botanic Gardens of Java in 1890. Having 



