220 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Irish Algae.* — J. Adams has prepared an account of the algae for 

 the Dublin Handbook of the British Association. He shows that in 

 the Handbook of the Meeting at Dublin in 1878 the total algal flora 

 was 844 fresh-water species and 440 marine ; to these have since been 

 added 24 fresh-water and 114 marine, making a present grand total of 

 1422 species. The author gives a list of the rarer species : — Cyano- 

 phyceae (8), Chlorophyceae (17), Conjugate (5), Diatomaceae (8), 

 Phaeophyceae (5), Rhodophyceae (11). And he appends a bibliography. 



North American Algae.f — F. S. Collins publishes his ninth article 

 of notes on algae. Glozocystis scopidorum, a European species which he 

 has found in a warm-water pool in Maine, he thinks may prove to be a 

 stage of Ulothrix or Urospora. Protococcus ovalis was found with the 

 last species. Pilinia endophytica is described as a new species growing 

 endophytically in Ralfsia fiometi in Maine and all along the New 

 England coast. Pringsheimia scutata is a minute epiphyte found on 

 Zostera in Massachusetts. Ochlocluc-te ferox growing with the last species 

 is a new record for North America. Sphacelaria fusca, the difference of 

 which from 3. cirrhosa was lately made clear by Sauvageau, has been 

 found by Collins growing on a spider-crab in Massachusetts. Petrocelis 

 Middendorfii is shown to be the name of the Petrocelis of the New 

 England coast, hitherto supposed to be P. cruenta. The author describes 

 the remarkable algal vegetation observed during the summer in two 

 northerly stations, and discusses the conditions affecting them, viz. 

 warmth, increasing salinity, etc. He says, in summing up, that " even 

 on shores where conditions are sub-arctic individual stations may be 

 found where the conditions for a short time are almost sub-tropical ; in 

 such stations the number of species must be limited, but the number of 

 individuals developed in a short time may be enormous ; they will be 

 mostly plants of very rapid development and of short life, and mostly 

 of quite low organisation ; some plants, common in the sub-arctic waters, 

 may here assume a sudden luxuriance (Chondrus) ; some may also appear 

 on a different substratum {Ralfsia) ; some may take on a habit so dis- 

 tinct as to be considered a separate species native to lower latitudes 

 ( Ghceto in orpha) . ' ' 



R. E. Buchanan f enumerates the algae recorded for Iowa, including 

 180 species, and provides keys for the easier determination of the plants. 



Indian Ocean Algae. § — A. and E. S. Gepp give an account of the 

 Chlorophyceae and Phaeophyceae collected by J. S. Gardiner during the 

 ' Sealark ' Expedition to the Seychelles, Chagos Archipelago, and the 

 adjacent islands of the Indian Ocean in 1905. The list contains 

 thirty-six green and thirteen brown algae ; and six of them are new to 

 science. Microdictyon pseudohapteron is peculiar in the tenacula which 

 bind together its network. Bryopsis indica was distributed by W. H. 

 Harvey fifty years ago, but without a specific name. Cladocephalus 

 excentricus is an eastern member of a West Indian genus. Two new 



* Handbook to the Dublin District, Brit. Assoc, Dublin, 1908, pp. 102-8. 



t Rhodora x. (1908) pp. 155-164. 



% Proc. Iowa. Acad. Sci., xiv. (1908) 40 pp. 



§ Trans. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) vii. (1908) pp. 163-88 (3 pis.). 



