ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
477 
be greatly accelerated by removing the hard integument of the beak. 
This is the result partly of allowing free entrance of water to the embryo, 
partly of the removal of the mechanical obstacle to the emergence of the 
radicle. 
Mr. H. H. Dixon * * * § has proved by experiment tho incorrectness of 
the assertion that the presence of bacteria is essential to the germination 
of seeds. 
Herr C. Nesgenyi f has followed out the various stages in the germi- 
nation of the seeds of the chicory, especially in reference to the chemical 
changes which take place, and to those which are brought about by the 
absence of light. Before the complete exhaustion of the reserve food- 
materials contained in the cotyledons, the parenchyme of these organs, 
and of the uppermost portion of the hypocotyl, is filled with nearly 
assimilated starch. If light is excluded, this starch is, in the etiolated 
hypocotyl, replaced by glucose. This, and the remains of the reserve- 
starch and proteids, are then rapidly consumed, and the plant dies. 
Pseudo-vivipary of Juncus bufonius.f — Dr. H. Potonie calls atten- 
tion to the fact that the so-called viviparous condition of this cosmo- 
politan plant is not an example of true vivipary, understanding by that 
term the production of deciduous shoots or buds in the place of flowers, 
as occurs in Poa bulbosa and Allium vineale. The “ pseudo-vivipary ” of 
the toad-rush consists in the production of leafy rooting shoots in the 
floral region by the side of the flowers. 
Etiolation.§ — Dr. E. Amelung records the result of a series of 
observations on the effect on the growth of Cucurbita maxima of shut- 
ting off the light from the growing part, while the lower portion 
remained under normal conditions. The first leaves formed in the dark, 
although etiolated, were of the normal size ; but when a large number 
were formed in the dark, they became gradually smaller. The male 
flowers are much more unfavourably affected by darkness than the female. 
Female flowers formed in the light were sterile to the pollen of male 
flowers formed in the dark; while, on the other hand, female flowers 
formed in the dark could be impregnated by pollen from normal male 
flowers. No fertile seeds were formed in the dark. 
Symbiosis of Heterodera radicicola with Plants cultivated in the 
Sahara.|| — MM. P. Vuillemin and E. Legrain state that, while this 
roundworm is very destructive to the roots of cultivated plants growing 
in moist localities, it is actually advantageous to those growing in the 
desert. In the Sahara it attacks almost every cultivated crop, even those 
free from it in other situations, and causes the young vessels to swell 
into bladders with thin walls and numerous nuclei, which serve as reser- 
voirs of water, and enable the plant to thrive in an excessively arid and 
sandy soil. No tubercles produced by bacilli were observed in the 
Leguminosse under similar conditions. 
* Sci. Trans. R. Dublin Soc., v. (1893) pp. 1-4 (1 fig.). 
t ‘ Beitr. z. Keimungsgesch. v. Cichorium Intybus,’ Prag, 1893, 55 pp. and 
2 pis. See Bot. Centralbl., 1894, Beih., p. 65. 
X Biol. Centralbl., xiv. (1894) pp. 11-21 (1 fig.). 
§ Flora, lxxviii. (1894) pp. 204-10. Cf. this Journal, ante, p. 371. 
II Comptes Rendus, cxviii. (1894) pp. 549-51. 
