SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
425 
deal. It is not a modem plant, but a contemporary of that prototype of 
gymnosperms ” Aporoxylonj and similar plants of the Devonian. Further, 
the comparison should be not with exogens in general, or conifers in general, 
but with Taxinece, and especially with the more ancient types of these. 
Still further, it must be made with such wood partly altered by water- 
soakage and decay and fossilized. These necessary preliminaries to the 
question appear to have been altogether overlooked by Mr. Carruthers. His 
original determination of the probable afBnities of Prototaxites, as a very 
elementary type of taxine-tree, was based on the habit of growth of the 
plant its fibrous structure, its spirally-lined fibres, its medullary rays, its 
rings of growth, and its coaly bark, along with the durable character of its 
wood, and its mode of occurrence ; and he made reference for comparison to 
other Devonian woods and to fossil taxine-trees. 
Activity in the Growth of Plants. — A recent number of the Gardener’s 
Chronicle ” expresses itself on this point. It says : — “ How little we think 
of the prodigious activity manifested in the growth of plants during a few 
weeks. The process is gradual and noiseless ; moreover it is of everyday 
occurrence, and hence is disregarded. How much water must be absorbed 
and exhaled, how much air inhaled and exhaled, how much carbon fixed, 
during the process ? Here, by way of illustration of our remarks, are some 
measurements of an ordinary plant of Abies Nordmanniana, which we took 
a day or two since. The shrub is only 2 feet 6 inches in height, the number 
of young shoots of this year’s growth upon it is five hundred and eighty- 
five (585) ; the shoots vary in length from half an inch to 6 inches, their 
aggi’egate length is eleven hundred and seventy-one (1,171) inches, or nearly 
ninety-eight (98) feet. Dividing the aggregate length of the shoots (1,171 
inches) by their number (585), we find the mean length of the shoots to be 
about 2 inches. The average number of leaves on each inch of a number 
of shoots taken at random was 34, so that the total number of leaves on 
these 585 shoots may be set down at 39,814. Assuming each leaf to be 
only one inch in length — which is considerably under the mark, even when 
all the small undeveloped leaves are taken into consideration — we should 
have for the leaves a length of about three thousand five hundred and one 
(3,501) feet, so that, in round numbers, we may say that, including the 
shoots and leaves, the growth in length alone of this very moderate-sized 
young tree, during this season, has amounted to the prodigious number of 
three thousand six hundred (3,600) feet, so that if the shoots and the leaves 
could all be placed end to end in a continuous line they would occupy con- 
siderably more than half a mile ! ” 
Death of the Chief of American Botanists. — A late number of Silli- 
man’s American Journal” states that ‘‘John Torrey, M.D., LL.D., died 
at New York on the 10th of March, 1873, in the 77th year of his age. 
He has long been the chief of American botanists, and was at his death 
the oldest, with the exception of the venerable ex-president of the American 
Academy (Dr. Bigelow), who entered the botanical field several years 
earlier, but left it to gather the highest honours and more lucrative rewards 
of the medical profession, about the time when Dr. Torrey determined to 
devote his life to scientific pursuits.” 
A peculiar Arrangement of Wood and Bark in the Stem of Wistaria Sinensis 
