ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 69 



with the earlier germination, its growth being accelerated by increasing 

 intensity of light. Secondary rhizoids need higher intensity for their 

 development, and their number increases with increase of light. 

 3. From a certain degree of light onwards, no further increase affects 

 the development, i. The duration of light of a certain intensity need 

 not be long. Experiments were made with intermittent lighting, and 

 the results are given. 5. Daylight has in the main the same result as 

 electric light, though the relation between germination and formation of 

 the prothallium on the one hand, and light intensity on the other, differs 

 in daylight from that in electric light, the difference being due to 

 different composition of the spectrum. Further experiments in the 

 effect of light on the germinating filaments are described under varying 

 conditions of culture ; other fern species gave analogous results. 



Ferns of Formosa.* — B. Hayata pubUshes descriptions of some new 

 or rare mosses collected in Formosa. Archaiigiopteris Sotnai is described 

 and figured, and is shown to be an interesting link between Archangio- 

 pteris Henryi and the old genus Angiopteris. Though eight species of 

 AlsopMa have been recorded from Formosa, three of them seem 

 referable to A. latehrosa and two to the genus Dryopteris ; thus leaving 

 only A. formosana, A. podophylla, and A. latehrosa in the list; sterile 

 specimens are difficult to distinguish. Ten species new to science are 

 described in the paper, and a plate is devoted to the illustration of the 

 characters of Bhchiium {Blfchnidium) plagiogyriifrons. The determina- 

 tion of the Formosan species of Vittaria is facilitated with the help of 

 a key. 



Bryophyta. 



(By A. Gepp.) 



Targionia hypophylla.f — S. R. Kashyap publishes a supplementary 

 note on Targionia hypophylla. He has thoroughly re-examined the 

 Mussooree material for which he proposed the varietal name integerrima 

 in 1914, and finds that the two main differential characters, upon which 

 he relied, are not sufficiently constant to maintain the variety. The 

 peculiar male shoots described for the Indian plant have been shown by 

 O'Keeffe to occur in British specimens ; and the absence of tooth-like 

 interlocking processes from the involucral valves is but a variable 

 condition. 



Statistics of Moss Structure. | — J. MacLeod raises the question 

 whether it is possible to identify a species by means of numbers that 

 represent the value of the specific characters. Having obtained satis- 

 factory results with insects, he has applied the method to the genus 

 Milium, and limiting himself to a study of the leaves of the fertile stem 

 of ten British species. The successive leaves of a given stem from the 



* Icones Plantarum Formosarum. Taihoku : (1916) vi. pp. 154-63 (2 pis.). 



t New Phytologist, xvi. (1917) pp. 228-9. 



X Journ. Linn. Soc, xliv. (1917) pp. 1-58 (9 figs.). 



