ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 181 



nucleus has the somatic number of chromosomes. The endosperm is 

 formed entirely from the upper polar nucleus, and after the first division 

 of the latter into a small upper endosperm-cell and a large basal haus- 

 torial cell, the cavity of the embryo-sac develops. These results agree 

 with those of Treub and Lotsy, but their subsequent observations and 

 conclusions appear to be incorrect, for the present investigations show 

 that while the endosperm-cell regularly develops into an eight-celled 

 mass of endosperm, the egg-apparatus does not degenerate as supposed, 

 but persists as a small shrunken cell, which after several divisions gives 

 rise to a small undifferentiated embryo. Thus Balanophora agrees 

 with such saprophytes as Burmannia, Sciaphila, and Ootylanthera in 

 exhibiting somatic parthenogenesis. The investigations of Van Tieghem 

 and Hofmeister, taken in conjunction with the present work, show that 

 the embryo of the Balanophoraceas usually arises from the egg-cell, 

 but that in exceptional cases another cell of the egg-apparatus may 

 take part in its formation ; in the majority of the genera embryo- 

 formation takes place after fertilization, but that in B. elongata and 

 B. globosa, and also in Rhopalocnemis phalloides and Helosis guyanensis, 

 it is of a parthenogenetic character. 



CRYPTOGAMS. 



Pteridophyta. 



(By A. Gepp, M.A., F.L.S.) 



Dichotomy and Lateral Branching in Pteropsidae.* — J. C. Schoute 

 has studied modes of branching in Ferns, and comes to the conclusion 

 that the formation of a dichotomy does not differ in principle from a 

 lateral branching. As a result of disease, the usual dichotomy may ap- 

 pear with a normal angle-leaf, or one branch may be much larger than 

 the other and may take the place of the main shoot. The author argues 

 therefore that all branching of ferns is homologous, and the lateral buds 

 are not to be regarded as adventive-formations. Also it is very probable 

 that axillary branching of Gymnosperms and Angiosperms depends on the 

 same process, the only differences between the lateral branching of ferns 

 and that of the other Pteropsidae being, that in the former the bud is 

 not always above the leaf insertion, and by no means all leaves produce 

 buds. If that view be correct, the rare normal dichotomy of Angio- 

 sperms must be regarded as a new process, similar to a dichotomy of the 

 second rank. 



Lepidostrobus mintoensis.t — W. J. Wilson describes and figures a 

 new species of Lepidostrobus, fragments which he found in shale at the 

 Minto Coal Mines in New Brunswick. He compares it with other fossil 

 species. 



* Versl. k. Akad. Wet. Amsterdam, xv. 1 (1912) pp. 710-11. See also Bot. 

 Centralbl., cxxiii. (1913) p. 444. 



t Canada, Victoria Memorial Museum, Bull. No. 1 (1913) pp. 89-94 (1 pi.). 



