SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
201 
kindred in the present flora of Australia. This fact is all the more remark- 
able, because it happens also that the fauna of the Secondary Period has its 
nearest allies in the existing fauna of Australia. 
The Professorship of Botany in Trinity College, Dublin. — The chair vacant 
by the death of Dr. W. H. Harvey, our late greatest algologist, has been 
given to Dr. Alexander Dickson, of Edinburgh. Those of our readers who 
have noticed our references from time to time to Dr. Dickson’s various 
memoirs will agree with us in thinking that the selection made in this 
instance has been a judicious one. 
The Process of Fertilization in Fungi. — On this difficult subject a very 
elaborate paper appears, from the pen of Herr H. Karsten, in the Botanische 
TJntersuchungen. Herr Karsten’s observations tend to prove that several 
groups of fungi, whose fruits have hitherto been considered distinct, are 
produced in a manner common to all. We cannot here enter on an 
analysis of Herr Karsten’s essay, but it will interest fungologists who 
read it. 
The Examination of Menispermaceous Seeds. — Mr. J. Miers, whose valu- 
able Memoirs on the Menispermacese are being continued in the Annals of 
Natural History, gives the following as- a practical mode of examining the 
seeds of this order : — After macerating and freeing the putamen from its 
pericarpial covering, introduce the point of the dissecting knife along the 
peripheral line of suture. It is then easily separated into two valves, leaving 
the kernel in an entire state. u We thus see the true form of the cell, its 
position with regard to the condyle, and the mode of attachment of the seed, 
the embryo and the albumen, if present, being thus obtained whole and 
uninjured.” 
Chemical Reagents in Botanical Diagnosis. — The Pev. W. A. Leighton, so 
well known for his numerous contributions to the Science of Lichen-Botany, 
has accidentally discovered that if hypochloride of lime be immediately 
applied to specimens of Cladonice already moistened with hydrate of potash, 
some very curious reactions are produced. Eor instance, if only a very 
slight and scarcely observable reaction be produced by the hydrate of potash, 
the immediate application of the hypochloride of lime will bring out a full 
coloured yellow reaction, which colour may either remain permanent or be 
eventually obliterated. Mr. Leighton lays great stress on these chemical 
facts, and he contends that they afford a means of diagnosis better than any 
hitherto employed. Indeed, he asserts that, had Sir W. Hooker, and other 
great authorities, resorted to the chemical method, they would have achieved 
a better system of classification than that which they based upon mere 
“external characters and aspects.” Vide Annals of Natural History, 
February. 
A New Semper-vivum from the Salvage Islands is fully described in 
Scientific Latin in the Journal of Botany for January. 
The Leaves of the Dilleniacece. — In a memoir, laid before the French 
Academy on the 18th of February, M. Baillon describes very fully the 
anatomical features of this group of plants. The structure of the leaves 
appears to be peculiar. Generally, they are composed of a beteromorphous 
parenchyma. The cells beneath the upper epidermis are stick -like, and of 
tolerably equal size, but, as one descends through the substance of the leaf, 
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