ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 379 



hour is obtainable ; of the duration of their motility not much is known. 

 Examples are given of stages in the progression of heterogamy, culminat- 

 ing in oospores and antherozoids ; also of variants from the type found 

 in different phyla of Phteophycea?. A. G-. 



Historical Review of the Phseophycese. — A. H. Church {Journ. 

 of Bot.y 1919, 57, 265-73). A history of the brown seaweeds from the 

 time of Theophrastus (300 B.C.), showing how ideas of classification 

 were developed and have been modified by advancing knowledge and 

 means of investigation, and giving references to the best modern works 

 and papers on questions of morphology, anatomy, reproduction, etc. 



A. G. 



Fungi. 



NewBalansia on Cyperus. — C. W. Edgerton {Mycologia, 1919, 11, 

 259-61, 1 pi.). This fungus was discovered in the summer of 1917 

 attacking the fruiting parts of Cyperus virens. Large black sclerotia 

 were found replacing the seeds. The young flower-buds are attacked, 

 and the sclerotium develops as the bud enlarges. Perithecia are formed 

 in the black outer layer of the mature sclerotium. A diagnosis of the 

 fungus Balansia Cyperi sp. n. is appended. A. L. S. 



Parasite of the Tree-fern (Cyathea). — F. L. Stevens and Nora 

 Dalbey {Bot. Gaz., 1919, 68, 222-5, 2 pis.). " Cyathea arlorea, one 

 of the most beautiful of the tree-ferns, is usually heavily affected by 

 black fungous growths." These have been investigated by the authors, 

 and they have diagnosed the perfect condition of the fungus as Griggsia 

 Cyathea sp. n., with solitary perithecia, without any ostiole, and with 

 oval, hyaline one-celled spores. There is also a conidial or pycnidial 

 form, in which the pycnidium opens by a ragged cleft, and bears one- 

 celled brown conidia. A. L. S. 



Note on a Cordyceps. — Etienne Foex {Bull. Soc. Vaud. Sci. Nat., 

 1919, 52, 461-4, 1 pi., 1 fig.). The author gives careful descriptions 

 and figures of a species of Cordyceps found in the forest of Jorat. It 

 approaches near to C. capitata, and the author scarcely feels the necessity 

 of making a new species, though it differs in several respects from pub- 

 lished accounts. A. L. S, 



Phylogenyand Relationship in the Ascomycetes. — G. F.Atkinson 

 {Ann. Missouri Bot. Garden, 1915, 2, 315-76). This paper was written 

 by Atkinson some time before his death. In it he outlines and discusses 

 the views put forward by various botanists as to the origin of the 

 Ascomycetes or sac fungi. Atkinson himself would derive them from 

 fungus ancestry, rather than from the red algaj. He thinks we are not 

 in a position to name any known phycomycete as a probable ancestor, 

 though the ancestral stock probably possessed phycomycetous characters. 

 He goes further, and suggests Dipodascus as such a primitive form- 

 From that plant he traces Endomyces Magnusii and other Protoascomy. 



