SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
93 
BOTANY. 
A r ew Colouring Matter from the Tomato . — According to M. Millardet the 
cells of ripe tomatoes contain a great quantity of acicular crystals of a 
colouring matter, for which he proposes the name of solanorubine. It is 
insoluble in water, soluble in alcohol at a high temperature, but readily soluble 
in bisulphide of carbon, chloroform, and benzole. It is bleached by 
exposure to light, possesses no fluorescence, but exhibits very characteristic 
absorptions in the spectrum, namely : — Two bands in the green, coinciding 
with b and F, a band between F and G, and an obscurity near G. In 
M. Millardet’s opinion solanorubine is formed directly from the colouring 
matter of chlorophyll. 
The Vitality of Seeds. — Professor Ernst, of Caracas, writing in a late number 
of the “ American Naturalist,” states that a curious case of vitality is afforded 
by a very common weed, shepherd’s-purse, which, strange to say, is so rare 
at Caracas that it had not been met with in botanical excursions Covering 
a period of twelve years. Two years ago, in the southern part of the garden 
of the monastery, a place was graded for the erection of a building. A 
great deal of soil was removed, and a wholly fresh surface was thus un- 
covered. Upon this spot many weeds sprang up, and among them thousands 
of specimens of Capsella bursa-pastoris, or shepherd’s-purse. Professor Ernst 
concludes that in this case, the seeds had remained dormant in the soil for 
an unknown period. These cases belong to the same class as those men- 
tioned by Hoffmann, and given in the January number of the “ American 
Naturalist.” 
Floraofthe Guadeloupe Islands. — Mr. S. Watson publishes in the “Proceed- 
ings of the American Academy of Sciences” (vol. xi.) a paper on this subject, 
in which he concludes that this little flora as a whole is to be considered a part 
of that of California, as distinct from the flora of Mexico. It maybe inferred 
also that it has not been to any great extent derived from California by any 
existing process of conveyance and selection, but that it is rather indigenous 
to its present locality. Moreover, while it would indicate a connection at 
some period between the island and the main-land to the north, yet the 
number and character of the peculiar species favour the opinion that they are 
rather a remnant of a flora similar to that of California, which once extended 
in this direction considerably to the southward of what is now the limit of 
that flora upon the main-land. And, finally, the presence of so many South 
American types suggests the conjecture that this, and the similar element 
which characterizes the flora of California, may be due to some other con- 
nection between these distant regions than any which now exists, and even 
that all the peculiarities of the western floras of both continents had a com- 
mon origin in an ancient flora which prevailed over a wide, now submerged 
area, and of whose character they are the partial exponents. 
Sowerby s Drawings of English Fungi. — We learn from the “Journal of 
Botany ” that the Rev. M. J. Berkeley has presented to the Department of 
Botany, in the British Museum, James Sowerby’s original drawings for the 
“ English Fungi,” published in 1797-1809, consisting in all of 530. The 
