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HODGSON : VICIA SYLVATICA. 



characters, he explains as due to the fact that the nourishing 

 cytoplasma is not the same in the two cases, and may therefore give 

 rise to the differences met with. Very occasionally, instances occur 

 in which the fertihsation of B by A is quite possible, but not that of 

 A by B. In such cases it may be that the development of the 

 sperm-nucleus of A is capable of going on in the cytoplasma of B, 

 but that of B cannot advance in the cytoplasma of A. Or it may 

 be assumed that the germ-nucleus is able to direct the development of 

 the cytoplasma of A, but not that of B. Finally, it is not excluded 

 that purely mechanical causes may be at the bottom of these last 

 phenomena, as in some of the anurous Batrachia, where, as Pfluger 

 has shown, the spermatozoids of one species have too large a head 

 to pass the micropyle of the egg of the other species. That hybrids 

 are often more or less sterile, he considers may be accounted for on 

 the supposition that under the influence of the combined cell nuclei, 

 the return of the cyto-idioplasma to the embryonal condition is 

 specially difficult, and on that account the formation of generative- 

 cell nuclei is impossible. 



Proceeding in this way, Strasburger shows that these and other 

 even more difficult cases of hybrid fertilisation do not stand in 

 opposition to his theory, but, on the other hand, tend in a greater or 

 less degree to strengthen and support it. What verdict competent 

 critics will ultimately pronounce upon it, we do not propose to 

 anticipate, but that it deserves and will obtain the respectful attention 

 of all such, goes without saying. Meanwhile the ' New Investi- 

 gations' will be studied with the greatest possible interest by all 

 advanced students of botanical science, among whom, as we think, 

 the opinion will prevail, that whatever becomes of the theory, the 

 great body of facts here set forth will not only have an important 

 position assigned them, but will also have considerable influence on 

 the future progress of vegetable physiology. 



BOTANICAL NOTE. 



Vicia sylvatica. — Towards the close of last year (I believe in your October 

 issue), I noticed some remarks by a correspondent on certain peculiarities of 

 structure which he had observed in plants of this species growing on the rocky 

 coast of Galloway. It at once occurred to me that his description might possibly 

 apply to the stunted type of the same plant, which appears abundantly on the 

 rocky sea-side bluffs on the Cumberland coast line, between Harrington and 

 Whitehaven. I set out in order to verify this assumption, but only to discover 

 that approaching winter had so far cut down the plants for the season, as to render 

 any satisfactory diagnosis impossible. I am quite sensible that a* wide difference 

 is observable between these sea-side specimens, and the splendid examples of the 

 Wood Vetch to be met with in Denton Side woods, near Sebergham, Carlisle; but 

 whether the distinction is sufficient to constitute a distinct variety, remains to be 

 determined. — W. Hodgson, Flimby, Maryport, April 24th, 1885. 



Naturalist, 



