96 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
went on elongating till many of them had reached the length of 2 feet 
9 inches, each plant bearing from 18 to 20 long tapering snake-shaped 
seed-vessels. In the young state the seed-pods may he used like the 
ordinary cultivated ground radish, as they possess a peculiar pungent taste. 
They will also be found useful for making up mixed pickles, &c. About eight 
years ago seeds were received from Madras under the name of “ Rat-tail radish, 
Baphanus caudatus ,” with seed-pods 8 inches long. This variety produces 
seeds freely, and is annually grown in the garden ; it possesses the same pungent 
taste as the long-fruited plant. The large radish is very hardy, as both flowers 
and fruit were found on it in the open air as late as 9th November, 1865. In- 
dependent of the various culinary purposes to which this radish may be 
turned, it is of itself a great vegetable curiosity. If the seed is sown singly, 
and each plant is tied upright, the fruit will, when matured, be found 
hanging all round — sometimes perfectly straight, at other times assuming 
contorted forms. This contortion is most perceptible at the period when the 
seeds are swelling. At no state of their growth does either of the varieties 
show the slightest tendency to produce the radish underground. 
Plants within Plants. — In one of the recent numbers of the Comptes 
Bendus, M. Trecul gives an account of some curious observations, showing 
that plants sometimes are formed within the cells of existing ones. He con- 
siders that the organic matter of certain vegetable cells can, when under- 
going putrefaction, transform itself into new species, which differ entirely from 
the species in which they are produced. In the bark of the Elder, and in 
plants of the potato and stone-crop order, he found vesicles full of small 
tetrahedral bodies containing starchy matter, and he has seen them gradually 
transformed into minute plants by the elongation of one of their angles. 
De Candolle's Prize. — The Physical and Natural History Society of 
Geneva will next year award De Candolle’s botanical prize of four hundred 
francs for the best essay upon a genus or family of plants. Memoirs must be 
sent in not later than the 1st of July, 1866. The ordinary members of the 
Society will not be allowed to compete. The Society reserves to itself the 
right of printing in its memoirs the successful essay.— Yide The Beader, Dec. 
The Vitality of Yeast. — On this subject a very important paper has been 
read before the French Academy by M. Trecul. The author differs from most 
physiologists in supposing that the phenomena of fermentation are not due 
simply to a sort of catalytic action of the yeast, but depend simply upon 
the nutritive processses of this vegetable. He washed and washed 
globules of yeast until they appeared to be mere envelopes of cellules, and 
found that they still retained the power of changing cane-sugar into glucose, 
and setting up the alcoholic fermentation, which proves, he considers, that 
the property of setting up fermentation resides in the living cellule, and is a 
consequence of the act of nutrition of this cellule. 
Vegetable Parasites. — In a paper reead before the Microscopical Society 
(November 8th), Mr. Jabez Hogg showed that these vegetable growths do not 
produce disease, but are developed because the diseased part supplies the 
conditions requisite for their growth. He believes that the diseases in which 
the vegetable parasites appear are always associated with neglect of person, 
dirt, bad air, want of light, and deficient nourishment ; that the spores of 
fungi are always floating about in the atmosphere, and are thus ever ready 
