Herr Reinke has made an interesting examination of the action of light
on a plant. He has permitted a pencil of sun rays to pass through a
converging lens upon a cell containing a fragment of an aquatic plant.
He was enabled to increase the intensity of the light, so that it should
be stronger or weaker than the direct sunlight. He could thus vary its
intensity from 1/16 of that of direct sunlight to an intensity 64 times
stronger. The temperature was maintained constant.

Herr Reinke has shown that the chlorophyl action increases regularly
with the light for intensities under that of direct sunlight; but what
is unexpected, that for the higher intensities above that of ordinary
daylight the disengagement of oxygen remains constant.

M. Leclerc du Sablon has published some of his results in his work on
the opening of fruits. The influences which act upon fruit are external
and internal. The external cause of dehiscence is drying. We can open or
shut a fruit by drying or wetting it. The internal causes are related to
the arrangement of the tissues, and we may say that the opening of fruit
can be easily explained by the contraction of the ligneous fibers under
drying influences. M. Leclerc shows by experiment that the fibers
contract more transversely than longitudinally, and that the thicker
fibers contract the most. This he finds is connected with the opening of
dry fruits.

Herr Hoffman has recently made some interesting experiments upon the
cultivation of fruits.

It is well known that many plants appear to select certain mineral soils
and avoid others, that a number of plants which prefer calcareous soils
are grouped together as _calcicoles_, and others which shun such ground