Vascular Structure of Cycads. 
247 
inner integument as of frequent occurrence in Morns alba. Braun 1 
ascribes this to a forking of the end of the ovular rudiment 
(Eisprosschen). Miss Benson and Miss Sanday 2 have found one such 
•case in Carpinus Betulus. 
Royal College of Science. 
L. S. GIBBS. 
1 Braun, A. Ueber Polyembryonie und Keimung von Ccelobogyne, 
ein Nachtrag zur Abhandlung liber Parthenogenesis bei 
Pflanzen. Abhandl. Konig. Akad. d. wiss., Berlin, pp. 109-263 
1859. 
2 Miss Benson's and Miss Sanday’s slide. 
RESEARCHES ON 
THE VASCULAR STRUCTURE OF CYCADS. 1 
HE botanical investigator of self-complacent attitude who 
imagines that because he has worked at a subject for many 
years from (to him) every conceivable point of view, with the 
apparent result of having exhausted the subject, forgets that his 
point of view can be but a partial and limited one and that often in 
the case of the most hackneyed material, another type of mind 
regarding the subject in turn from his standpoint, may unearth 
treasures from the same old field which the previous investigator, 
for the reason above mentioned, failed to find. 
This principle is well illustrated by the recent appearance of 
Dr. Matte’s thesis bearing the above title, a thesis whose chief 
recommendation would seem to be that it presents a tout ensemble 
of admirably marshalled facts most of which were already familiar 
as such, but had never been seen, at least from this aspect, in such 
a clear light, nor in such well-ordered array. The author exhibits 
the power, rare in our day, of extracting from the chaos of scattered 
facts of detail one overlying generalisation,— of creating unity out 
of diversity, a method of procedure which shou'd be the chief aim 
of all scientific investigation. 
These well-ordered facts, then, deal with the course and 
structure of the vascular bundles of Cycads, the greatest emphasis 
being laid on these phenomena as they occur in the “ meriphyte ” 
or foliar organs of the plant, the vascular structure of the axis 
being (in our opinion, rightly) regarded as of secondary origin and 
importance. 
1 H. Matte. “ Recherches sur l’Appareil Lib6ro-ligneux des 
Cycadac6es,” Caen, 1904. 
