154 
Notes. 
oblique than exactly transverse, and were always thick and gelatinous, 
sometimes of very great thickness : the wall of the filament was never 
constricted, but was sometimes widened at the septum. Being 
towards the end of the season, many of the Vaucheria - filaments were 
more or less in a state of decay ; in some instances the walls of the 
filaments had entirely disappeared, and the septa alone remained 
suspended in the water as thick discs of gelatinous cellulose. 
ALFRED W. BENNETT, London. 
TREMATOCAKPUS. — Dr. A. Zahlbruckner 1 describes a number 
of new Lobeliaceae of the Vienna Herbarium, among them an assumed 
new genus, based upon Hooker and Arnott’s Lobelia macrostachys , a 
native of the Sandwich Islands. The type being in the Kew Herbarium, 
I was induced to investigate the matter, and there is no doubt that Dr. 
Zahlbruckner has founded his genus upon a misinterpretation of the 
facts, or he has had a different plant before him. His name, as 
its composition indicates, was chosen on account of the presence 
of pores in the capsule, which he supposed to be the mode of dehiscence. 
He refers to Hooker and Arnott’s description and to Hillebrand’s 
Flora of the Hawaiian Islands, and comes to the conclusion that 
these botanists had not seen ripe fruit of the plant in question ; but 
this is an error, so far as the latter are concerned, because there are 
excellent specimens bearing ripe fruit in the Kew Herbarium, presented 
by Hillebrand. Dr. Zahlbruckner, who founds his genus on the pre- 
sence of pores in the capsule, describes it as follows : ‘ Capsula infera, 
lignosa, vertice clausa et umbonata, lateraliter inter costas praesertim 
versus basim foraminibus ovalibus aut rotundatis dehiscens.’ 
On examining the specimens in the Kew Herbarium I find that 
there are pores in a few of the capsules, but, except that they are 
between the ribs, they are not regularly placed, and in some of the 
capsules there is only one ; and they are evidently, in all cases, the 
work of some insect. Whether Dr. Zahlbruckner has mistaken such 
punctures for dehiscing pores I am, of course, not prepared to say; 
yet I think I may safely assert that the capsules of Lobelia macrostachys 
do not dehisce by lateral pores. The proposed new genus, therefore, 
seems to fall to the ground. 
W. B. HEMSLEY, Kew. 
1 Annalen des K. K. Naturhistorischen Iiofmuseums, VI. p. 430. 
