I 



ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICliOSCOPY, ETC. 139 



stomata scattered (type species, E. arvcnse). 2. Hippocksete, with stems 

 generally evergreen, not dimorphous, usually simple ; branches, when 

 present, similar to the stem ; spikes usually apiculate ; stomata in 

 regular rows (type species, H. hy emails). The genus Hipjjochsete was 

 proposed by Milde in 1865. Further, Farwell would split this genus into 

 two sections — Euhippochsete (stems evergreen, spikes apiculate) and 

 Amhiijua (stems annual, spikes obtuse or apiculate, ridges rounded). 

 And he provides a key in which the characters that separate the species 

 are to be found in the ridges and sheaths, whether concave and bian- 

 gulate, or convex and banded, campanulate or cylindrical. He describes 

 also two very distinct types of anatomy in Hippochsete — the one with 

 the vallecular bast abundant, the other with the carinal bast abundant. 



Vittaria and Antrophyum.* — G. Hieronymus, having revised the 

 Vittarieai of the Berlin Herbarium, found it necessary to separate 

 off several new species of Vittaria and Antrophyum, and publishes 

 detailed descriptions of them. A further series of new species from 

 New Guinea and tropical Africa are destined for Engier's " Botanisches 

 Jahrbuch." 



B r y o p h, y t a. 

 (By A. Gepp.) 



Resting Moss-protonema.t— B. M. Bristol describes and figures 

 some remarkable examples of moss-protonema which, after lying 

 dormant for nearly half a century in samples of soil stored in sealed 

 l)ottles at the Eothamsted Experimental Station, germinated when 

 placed under cultivation. When carefully cleaned from particles of 

 soil, the new green protonema was found to have arisen from distorted 

 resting-cells with enormously thickened walls, and containing greenish- 

 yellow oil-drops. These oil-drops disappear as the new shoots develop 

 and produce their chloroplasts. No such resting moss-protonema 

 appears to have been observed hitherto. 



Ecology of Mosses. I — B. Kessler gives an account of his experiments 

 in connexion with the ecology of mosses. He finds that the germination 

 of moss-spores is influenced by the reaction of solutions. The same 

 reaction works differently on the spores of species from different habitats. 

 The behaviour of spores in a solution of acid or alkaline reaction shows 

 a relation to the habitat of the moss-species. The spores of chalk- 

 loving species {Hypnum moJImcum, If. commutatum, Barbiila muralis, 

 Br yum csespltitium, Orthotrichum saxatile, Grimmia pulvinata, Flayiopus 

 (Ederi) demand an alkaline reaction. Mosses of damp humus and 

 swamp-land (species of Bpluujnum. and Polytrichum, Poyonatum., 

 Tetrapliis, Dkranella heteromalla) demand an acid reaction. The 

 spores of the so-called widely distributed species and of those which prefer 



* Hedwigia, Ivii. (191G) pp. 200-14. See also Bot. Centralbl., cxxxii. (191G) 

 p. 442. 



t New Phytologist, xv. (191G) pp. 137-43 (figs.). 



X Beih. Bot. Centralbl., xxxi. Ite Abt. (1914) pp. 358-87 (1 fig.). 



