The Bouche cf Erquy in 1908. iC3 
marked influence in fixing the seed and protecting the embryos at 
the time of establishment, observations on migration prove that a 
proportion of the seed is transported from place to place—no doubt 
by the tides. For if an area be denuded of every plant of Sali- 
cornia long before the seed is ripe, a fresh crop of Salicornia will 
appear upon it in the spring, although it may have been demonstrated 
by control washings of samples of the soil that the amount of 
dormant seed in the soil persisting from a former year is a 
negligeable one. 
By harvesting the seed in November and sowing it at the 
beginning of April on areas that have been denuded immediately 
before the sowing, the danger of contamination is no doubt reduced 
to a minimum, but the resulting crop is always meagre because the 
process of denuding and preparing the ground involves interference 
with the important Rliizoclonium covering. Thus while Scylla is 
evaded we become involved in Charybdis. 
If therefore the cultivations must be carried out on the marsh, 
and there are strong reasons why they should be, it would seem 
that the experimental patches should be protected during the critical 
period from invasion by water-carried seeds. To ensure the effective 
enforcement of this precaution expert supervision is essential during 
the winter months—supervision which can only be exerted by 
residence in the sphere of operations. 
During the spring of 1908 a series of preliminary experiments 
on the osmotic phenomena of the root-hairs of Salicornia and 
Suceda seedlings were concluded. The results, which have already 
appeared in these pages, 1 show (i.) that the root-hairs of plants 
growing in places where the soil-water is strongly saline can 
accommodate their internal osmotic pressure as the salinity of the 
water of the environment falls in concentration ; (ii.) that they 
also have the capacity of raising their internal osmotic strength in 
proportion to the increase of the external salinity. 
A number of readings with the wet and dry bulb thermometer 
were taken at various heights at different stations with a view to 
investigating the vertical distribution of humidity. 
Photographs were taken in the autumn from many of the view¬ 
points of former years so that there should be no break in the 
continuity of the records of changes in the vegetation. 
T. G. HILL. 
1 T. G. Hill. Observations on the Osmotic Properties of the 
Root-Hairs of Certain SaltMarsh Plants. New Phytologist, 
Vol. VII., p. 133. 
