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224 LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON.
tion. We can trace the succession of events, but the statements of
the time required to bring about these events are based on deductions
from the accompanying or resultant physical or biological
phenomena, and must differ according to the estimate of the various
observers. So all the interval between our own day and the glacial
epoch is, as we express time, very great, though small relatively to
the history of the globe. It must, however, be admitted to represent
an appreciable fraction of the time that has elapsed since we
meet with the first record of dicotyledonous plants in the earth's
strata. As we have seen, the species constituting the British Flora
tlien possessed all the characters which are now used to distinguish
them as independent species. For instance, the somewhat minute
peculiarities which separate SaU.v Jwrbacea from *S'. polarLi were
present in the plants which grew in glacial times in Britain, and
they have not been added to or even intensified in the living plants
of the two species, although the changed physical environment has
driven the one north, within the arctic circle, and the other to the
tops of the higher mountains. And what is true of these two
Willows is true of all the other plants which have hitherto been
discovered in the glacial beds. The mosses and ferns, the gymnosperms
and angiosperms, exhibit the same characters, without
addition or modification, as their living descendants."
On a ballot taking place for new members of Council, the
following were declared to be elected :— Dr. P. H. Carpenter,
Dr. J. W. Meiklejohn, Mr. E. B. Poulton, Dr. D. Sharp, and
Prof. C. Stewart. On a ballot taking place for President and
officers, the following were declared to be elected:— President,
Prof. Charles Stewart; Secretaries, B. D. Jackson and W. P.
Sladen ; Treasurer, Frank Crisp. — The Linnean Society's Gold
Medal for the year 1890 was then formally awarded and presented
to Professor Huxley for his researches in Zoology.
June 5. — Prof. Charles Stewart, President, in the chair.
Messrs. Harvey Gibson and W. F. Kirby were admitted and Messrs.
W. H. Beeby and S. Gasking were elected Fellows of the Society.
—The President then nominated as Vice-Presidents for the year
Messrs. W. Carruthers, P. Martin Duncan, J. G. Baker, and F.
Crisp. — Mr. H. Little exhibited and made some remarks upon a
remarkable Aroid, AmorphDphallus titanum, which had flowered for
the first time in this country. — Mr. James Groves exhibited a
specimen of an Orohanche parasitic upon a Pelarf/oniiDii. — The
following papers were then read and discussed :—Mr. G. F. Scott
Elliot, " On a collection of plants made by him in Madagascar";
Eev. G. Henslow, " On Weismann's Theory of Heredity applied to
plants"; Mr. Harvey Gibson, " On the development of the tetrasporangia
in RlKthducorton EutJiii, Naegeli"; "On the position of
Chantransia, with a description of a new species, by Mr. George
Murray and Miss E. Barton"; Miss A. L. Smith, "On the development
of the cystocarp in CiiUophijllls laciniaUi "; and Mr. J. B.
Carruthers, " On the cystocarps of some genera of Floridere."