392 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



BOTANY. 



GENERAL, 

 Including the Anatomy and Physiolog-y of Seed Plants. 



On the Cretaceous Flora of Russian Sakhalin.— A. Kryshto- 

 FOVICH {Jo urn. Coll. Sri. Imp. Univ. Tokyo, 1!)1S, 40, Art. 8, 15 figs.), 

 as the results of his studies in the fossil flora of the Island of Sakhalin^ 

 in the summer of 1917, comes to the conclusion that this flora, hitherto 

 regarded as exclusively Miocene, belongs in fact to several geological 

 horizons, not only of the Tertiary period but also of the Cretaceous. It 

 is found that the latter deposits play a more important part in the 

 structure of Russian Sakhalin than was formerly assumed, and Heer 

 (1878) included in the Miocene flora a Nilssonia, which is charac- 

 teristically Mesozoic. A list of fossil plants obtained from all the 

 localities worked is given, followed bv a critical examination and de- 

 scription of the species (thirty-four), of which six are new. When the 

 complete study of all the material has been made, the number of species 

 will reach 100. The variation of the forms from difi"erent localities has 

 enabled the author to trace three horizons in the flora of Sakhalin from 

 the Middle Cretaceous to the Upper. A. W. S. 



Fungi. 



Phycomycetous Fungi from the English Coal Measures.— David 

 Ellis {Proc. Roy. Soc.Edin., 1918, 38, 130-4.5, 1 pi. and 8 text-figs.). 

 An account of the results obtained by a systematic search in the Lower 

 Coal Measures for fossilized fungi. In the fossilized vegetable debris of 

 this horizon it is not unusual to meet with fragments of fungal threads 

 when these are specially sought for ; it was only when remains of the 

 hyphfe and attached structures occurred with specific clearness that they 

 were studied in detail. Altogether some fifteen species of fungi have 

 been assigned with some degree of certainty to the Phycomycetes. The 

 majority of the thirty slides examined were prepared from petrifactions 

 from the Upper Foot Mine, Shore, Littleborough. One of the species 

 described in the paper, Peronosporites gracilis, was found in the cortex 

 of the stem of Lepidodendron amleatum, and also in the cortex of a 

 secondary root of Lygnirdendron Oldhamium. T^he structure is described 

 and its close relationship with P. anticmarius W. Smith indicated. The 

 second fungus, described under the name Paleeomyces baciUoides, was 

 found in the parenchymatous cells of the leaf-bases of a species of 

 Lepidodendron (probably L. fuJiginosus) from the Upper Foot Mine. 

 Vesicles found attached to the hyphas may be regarded as the remains 



