ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 271 



jGenus Desmatodon in North America. — R. S. Williams {BulL 

 Torrey Bot. Club, 1919, 46, 207-20, 1 pi.). Descriptions of the 

 genus and twelve species, with a key to tlie species, and figures of leaf- 

 structure in transverse section. Half the species occur in Europe. 



A. G. 



Mosses of North Queensland. — Y. F. Brotherus and W. AYalter 

 Watts {Proc. Linnean Soc. New South Wales, 1918, 43, 544-67). An 

 examination of 158 species of mosses collected in the Cairns district, 

 etc. The flora is more of Malayan affinity than Australian ; and seven- 

 teen genera and thirty species are added to the Australian moss-flora. 

 Also Pterobryklium, a new genus, is described, as well as fourteen new 

 species. A. Gr. 



Moss Exchange Club. — Twenty-fourth Annual Report, July, 1919, 

 225-52 ; York : Waddington. A systematic list, with annotations, of 

 the Bryophyta collected and distributed by the members of the Club. 

 Particular attention has been paid to the forms of Sphagnum as defined 

 in Warnstorf's " Sphagnologia Universalis" (1911). A. Gr. 



Thallophyta. 



Algae. 



Building of an Autotrophic Flagellate. — A. H. Church {Botanical 

 Memoirs, No. 1, 1919, 27 pp. ; Oxford University Press). An account 

 of the origin and development of the simple self-supporting plankton 

 cell in sea-water, with reference to the subsequent progression of life on 

 this planet ; for all the races of plants and animals must, as the author 

 shows, have been derived from it. The subject is divided into a score 

 of chapters, which treat of the ionic energy of the sea, solar radiation, 

 uhotosynthesis, proteid-synthesis, growth, day and night, surface tension, 

 contractility, differentiation of plasmatic tracts, polarity, the flagellum, 

 binary fission, failure and death, holozoic nutrition, flagellar nutrition, 

 origin of sexual fusion, differentiation of flagella, comparative dimensions, 

 encystment and formation of the cell wall. Step by step the author 

 w'orks out his case, showing how inevitably phnse has followed phase in 

 the scheme of evolution. The memoir is a compressed summary of facts 

 and arguments affording an outline survey of the whole subject viewed 

 from the standpoint of the pelagic plankton. A. Gr. 



Phylogenesis of the Orthobiont. — Charles Janet (Limoges : 

 Ducourtieux et Gout ; 191G, 72 pp., 6 tables, 8 pi.). A systematized 

 account of the evolution of sundry types of plants and animals from the 

 primitive Flagellate. By special terminology and by the use of charac- 

 terizing letters, the cell-colonies, individuals, reproductive cells, etc., a*re 

 all particularized, and the homologous phases are indicated in the types 

 selected — Flagellate, Volvox aureus, Ulothrix zonata, Spirogyra, Fuciis 

 vesiculosus, Riccia glauca. The life-histories are planned out in the 

 tables and plates. A. G. 



