SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, SEPTEMBER 13. 



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SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE. 



Septembee 13, 1910. 

 Prof. G. S. BouLGER, F.L.S., in tHe Chair, and five members present. 



Fruit of Hippeastrum calyptratum. — Mr. Worsley showed a mature 

 fruit of HippeaMrum calyptratum, drawing attention to the mem- 

 branous ring which, attached to the style and the top of the ovary, 

 is separable at maturity intact, and to the deep lobing of the fruit at 

 the base, which is not shown in published figures, these having 

 apparently been prepared from immature fruits. 



Plantago media hracteata. — Messrs. Barr sent an excellent specimen 

 of this plant, in which the bracts are so enlarged that they form a 

 dense rosette of closely packed and evidently spirally arranged, ovate, 

 green leaves at the apex of the peduncle. The axis elongates but very 

 slightly as it gets older. 



Maize inflorescences. — Mr. A. Turner, Chelmsford, sent staminate 

 inflorescences of maize, in which some of the flowers had been 

 replaced by pistillate ones ; and branching cobs, some of the branches 

 of which bore staminate instead of pistillate flowers. 



Fasciation in Vegetable Marrow. — Mr. W. H. Martin, Haslemere, 

 sent an example of a fasciated stem of vegetable marrow between four 

 and five inches broad. 



Reversion in Radishes. — The Eev. Prof, Henslow, V.M.H., sent 

 the following communication: "Pliny tells us that the Greeks dis- 

 covered how to turn the rape into the turnip by sowing the seed in a 

 very heavy soil. M. Languet de Sivny found that the seeds of short- 

 rooted carrots, when sown in the alluvial deposits in France, yielded 

 immediately in the first generation long-rooted plants. M. Garriere 

 found that seeds of the wuld radish {Raphanus Raphanistrum) gave a 

 majority of long roots in the light soil near Paris, but turnip forms in a 

 heavy soil in the south of France. I sowed the seed of the turnip- 

 radish in a prepared, very light soil ; of thirty plants twenty were long- 

 rooted, and ten produced the nornial forms, thus corroborating M. L. de 

 Sivny 's experience. The point to notice is that the turnip and long- 

 rooted radishes come true, as a rule, from seed, as well as the short and 

 long carrots, &c. We have here distinct varieties with hereditary 

 characters, originating solely from the * direct action ' of stiff or light 

 soils, illustrating Darwin's contention that varieties arise ' without the 

 aid of selection.' " 



The Influence of Starvation on Sex.- — Prof. Henslow also wrote as 

 follows : " It is well known that the male flowers of monoecious trees, 

 as oaks, are generally on more slender shoots than the females. So, 

 too, in dioecious herbs the females are, as a rule, on stronger plants 

 than the males. The following experience illustrates both these facts. 



