SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
373 
have resulted in the great probability of the truth of the oft-combated 
“ nebular hypothesis,” as they now appear to be vast masses of huninous gas 
On this latter point, in so far as regards the nebula of Orion, which he has 
examined during this winter, Mr. Huggins is at issue with Lord Rosse and 
Professor Bond, who have detected stars near the trapezium which the 
spectrum apparatus only shows as a gaseous mass. 
New TelescojJe. — Mr. Cooke has commenced a refracting telescope of the 
extraordinary dimensions of 25 inches aperture. 
Professor Bond. — On February 10, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astrono- 
mical Society was presented to Professor Bond for his great discoveries in 
practical and theoretical astronomy. It never reached him, however, as he 
died on February 17, at Cambridge, U.S. 
BOTANY. 
Vegetable Hyhridity. — On this subject a most interesting memoir was 
recently presented to the French Academy by M. Naudin. This distinguished 
botanist has been experimenting on certain members of the genus Mirahilis, 
and has arrived at some very curious results. In 1862 he obtained a plant 
and seed of Mirabilis longiflora — Jalapa, which had been procured by im- 
pregnating the common purple-flowered Marvel of Peru with the pollen 
of M. longiflora.. The seed was sown, and the two plants grew to a large size, 
perfectly similar in every respect, and intermediate between the parent 
species. They were moderately fertile, and furnished some hundreds of 
perfect seeds. From seeds of the first plants M. Naudin raised six other 
hybrids of the second generation. They did not resemble the hybrids of the 
first generation either in size or appearance. Two of them were nearly alike ; 
they were vigorous, and flowered abundantly, but were quite barren. A third 
had almost reverted to the M. Jalapa, differing chiefly in the longer tube of 
the corolla : this was fertile. The remaining three were very dissimilar in 
their appearance, and barren ; at least they produced only a few fruits, in 
which the seeds were imperfectly formed. From a great number of some- 
what similar investigations M. Naudin concludes that in all cases of hybridity 
where the plants do not revert to the parent type, there is an extreme of 
disordered variation exhibited. 
Relation of Stamens and Pistil in Lythrum. — Some time ago, Mr. Charles 
Darwin sent a paper to the Linnean Society, in which he described the rela- 
tion of the elements of sexual apparatus in this plant. The common Loose- 
strife appears to be trimorphic ; that is to say, it presents three modes of 
arrangement of stamens and pistil in different plants. These are the long- 
styled, medium-styled, and short-styled. The first has six medium stamens and 
six short ones ; the second has six long and six short stamens ; and the 
third has six long and six medium stamens. Now besides these difi'erences 
in the length of the stamens, there are as many corresponding differences 
in the length of the styles ; viz., the long, medium, and short style. Mr. 
Darwin, with a patience for which he cannot be too highly praised, produced 
eighteen artificial unions by fertilizing each kind of stigma with the pollen of 
the six separate sets of stamens. From these researches he learnt that, as in 
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