312 
Notes. 
the scale of temperature, any metabolism can really be proceeding. 
In these cases the molecular machinery of life is all present and intact, 
but the manifestation of vitality , as measured by chemical movement 
and by a change in the condition of energy, is absent. But such 
a state differs widely from death, seeing that when the conditions 
favourable to the continuous progress of those reactions which are 
associated with vitality are restored, the organism proceeds to work 
in the normal manner once more. Similarly the albumin heated 
in the desiccated form retains, instead of changing, that particular 
molecular condition which enables it, on restoring the essential con¬ 
ditions of moisture, to coagulate in a normal fashion when heated to 
a suitable degree of temperature. 
Since the above observations were made, I have been able to 
experiment with some vegetable albumin, also obtained from Merck. 
The substance is in the form of a dry powder, and clearly contains 
far less water than does the ordinary dried egg-albumin. And in 
correspondence with this fact it is found to be easily dried in air 
at a temperature of about 4o°C., after which it may be heated in 
a flask under the same conditions as the egg-albumin, with precisely 
similar results, allowance being made for the much higher temperature 
(about 77°C.) at which coagulation occurs. The easy desiccation of 
the vegetable albumin is perhaps of special interest in considering 
the power of resistance displayed by seeds when subjected to the 
action of high temperature. 
ON 3STUYTSXA FLORIBUNDA, R. Br.— Originally described 
by La Billardiere (1804) as a Loranthus , this plant was subsequently 
separated from that genus by reason of its peculiar fruit—a dry drupe 
with the pericarp in three longitudinal wings—by Robert Brown 
in 1831, who renamed the plant Nuyisia, after the Dutch navigator 
of the Swan River, Peter Nuyts. 
Nuytsia is especially interesting as a member of the Loranthaceae 
which is said to have an independent existence, the plant often 
developing into a tree 10-12 metres in height. Its distribution is 
extremely limited, being confined to the Swan River region of Western 
Australia, in which locality the plant is known to the inhabitants as 
the ‘Fire-Tree’ on account of its masses of bright orange-coloured 
flowers. 
The seedling exhibits a very unusual feature in having three 
