The lowest members of the vegetable series, the Thallogens, apparently circumnutate. If an Oscillaria be watched under the microscope, it may be seen to describe circles about every 40 seconds. After it has bent to one side, the tip first begins to bend back to the opposite side and then the whole filament curves over in the same direction. Hofmeister[15] has given a minute account of the curious, but less regular though constant, movements of Spirogyra: during 2½ h. the filament moved 4 times to the left and 3 times to the right, and he refers to a movement at right angles to the above. The tip moved at the rate of about 0.1 mm. in five minutes. He compares the movement with the nutation of the higher plants.[16] We shall hereafter see that heliotropic movements result from modified circumnutation, and as unicellular Moulds bend to the light we may infer that they also circumnutate. [15] ‘Ueber die Bewegungen der Faden der _Spirogyra princeps:_ Jahreshefte des Vereins für vaterländische Naturkunde in Württemberg,’ 1874, p. 211. [16] Zukal also remarks (as quoted in ‘Journal R. Microscop. Soc.,’ 1880, vol. iii. p. 320) that the movements of Spirulina, a member of the Oscillatorieae, are closely analogous “to the well-known rotation of growing shoots and tendrils.” CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE CIRCUMNUTATION OF LEAVES. The circumnutating movements of young leaves in 33 genera, belonging to 25 families, widely distributed amongst ordinary and gymnospermous Dicotyledons and amongst Monocotyledons, together with several Cryptogams, have now been described. It would, therefore, not be rash to assume that the growing leaves of all plants circumnutate, as we have seen reason to conclude is the case with cotyledons. The seat of movement generally lies in the petiole, but sometimes both in the petiole and blade, or in the blade alone. The extent of the movement differed much in different plants; but the distance passed over was never great, except with Pistia, which ought perhaps to have been included amongst sleeping plants. The angular movement of the leaves was only occasionally measured; it commonly varied from only 2° (and probably even less in some instances) to about 10°; but it amounted to 23° in the common bean. The movement is chiefly in a vertical plane, but as the ascending and descending lines never coincided, there was always some lateral movement, and thus irregular ellipses were formed. The movement, therefore, deserves to be called one of circumnutation; for all circumnutating organs tend to describe ellipses,—that is, growth on one side is succeeded by growth on nearly but not quite the opposite side. The ellipses, or the zigzag lines representing drawn-out ellipses, are generally very narrow; yet with the Camellia, their minor axes were half as long, and with the Eucalyptus more than half as long as their major axes. In the case of Cissus, parts of the figure more nearly represented circles than ellipses.