424 Botanical Society of Edinburgh. hyosternals and hyposternals are primitively long, slender, trans-verse bars, which join the vertebral ribs in the Tortoises and Terra-penes, without the intervention of any marginal pieces. The ossifi-cation of the superadded dermal portions proceeds from the pre-viously ossified endo-skeletal elements. The author concurs with M. Ilathke in regarding the marginal pieces as ' dermal bones,' and concludes by a full discussion of the facts and arguments which have led him to a diflferent conclusion respecting the nature and homologies of the carapace and plastron. The memoir is illustrated by figures of the carapace and pla-stron, and of the corresponding segments of the skeleton in the bird and crocodile, and of the development of the thoracic-abdominal case in land-and sea-chelonians. BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. March 8, 1849. — Professor Balfour, President, in the Chair. The following communications were read : — 1. " On the mode of Growth in Calothrix and the allied genera," by John Pvalfs, Esq. (See p. 348 of the present number.) 2. " On the Cone-like Bodies produced by Epilohium palustre" by James Hardy, Esq. This paper describes the fleshy buds or hybernacula formed at the ends of the scions of some species of Epilobium , and which constitute a mode of propagation for those plants independently of the seed. The author notices more especially those of E. palustre, which he describes as resembling minute larch-cones, and formed of smooth, fleshy, orbicular reniform or cordate scales. The basal pair is small, the following ones suddenly enlarged, the apical ones small. They are imbricated in pairs alternately. In the autumn their connection with the parent plant is dissolved, and they lie loose on the spongy-soil until the spring, when they produce roots and form new and distinct plants. 3. " On Varieties of some common Plants," by James Hardy, Esq. The author describes a state of Scabiosa succisa with the involucre small, the heads loose and few-flowered, the external segment of the corolla much lengthened, stigma and stamens short. Found in Pen-manshiel Wood, Berwickshire. He next notices two forms of Leon-todon Taraxacum [Taraxacum officinale] founded chiefly on the forms of the leaves, characters quite unworthy of confidence in that genus. Of Rumex crispus he remarks that each of the petals bears a tuhercle when the plant grows near the sea, and only one of them when in-land. [This seems to be a generalization from insufficient data.] A variety of Sonchus oleraceus is founded on the presence of glands on the involucre, flower-stalks very downy when young, leaves lyrate-pinnatifid and usually destitute of spines. It is " maritime and is rarely found beyond the influence of the sea." [We have before us several specimens of ^S". oleraceus to which these characters will more or less apply, but only one of them is maritime. Gaudin is the only author with which we are acquainted who notices a plant (his jj.glan-
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