354 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Italian Cryptogamic Flora.*— T. Ferraris has recently issued the 

 sixth fascicle of this work dealing with the Hyphomycetes. The author 

 begins with the more complicated members of the group, the Tubercu- 

 lariacefe and Stilbacese, and completes the examination of their families. 

 He prefaces the part with a discussion as to the systematic position and 

 economic importance of the Hyphomycetes, and gives advice to beginners 

 how to collect and examine these minute plants. The genera are illustrated. 



Protection of Shade Trees against Attacks of Fungi.f — W. A. 

 Murrill delivered a lecture on this subject in New York. He describes 

 the fungi that particularly attack the shady parts of trees — Polyporei, 

 etc. Their spores gain entrance to the tissues through wounds, and his 

 advice was to avoid leaving any exposed tissue unprotected. The cut 

 surfaces laid bare by pruning are a special danger, and he gave instruc- 

 tions as to pruning and to treating the wounds. 



Mycological Notes, No. 344 — C. G. Lloyd includes in the last issue 

 of these photographs and notes on Clathrus cibarius, Clautriavia meru- 

 lina, Simblum periphragmoides, Bovistella echinella, B. pusilla, and 

 Pseudocolus javanicus. The author also publishes descriptions of various 

 species that he has found in herbaria or merely recorded in books. 



Fermentation Fungi from Korea. § — ■ K. Saito has studied the 

 organisms used in Korea for the preparation of koji, and found Asper- 

 gillus glaucus, Penicillium glaucum, Monascus purpureas, Mucor circinel- 

 loides, M. plumbeus, Absidia sp., Sachsia sp., and even more frequently 

 Aspergillus Oryzse, Rhizopus Tritici, and R. Tamari, the latter particu- 

 larly effective in the saccharification of starch. In different kinds of 

 maische numerous yeasts and bacteria were met with ; a new yeast, 

 Saccharomyces corea, was isolated. 



Fungi of Termites' Nests. [| — Henri Jumelle and H. Perrier de la 

 Bathie have written an account of termites' nests, and of the fungi 

 cultivated by the ants in Madagascar. There are several species 

 inhabiting the woods, hills, or trees, but the authors confine their study 

 to one species, Termes Perrieri, the sylvicolous form. The nests are 

 made from earth collected in the forest, are over 1 m. in height, and 

 are conical in form ; inside they are divided into chambers. Round the 

 ant-hill there is a network of subterranean galleries, by which the ants 

 go to obtain the wood, which they convert by mastication into a kind of 

 cake. These cakes form the substratum of the fungus, and the combined 

 cake and fungus provide food for the adult ants. The larva? eat the 

 small tufts of conidial fructifications that develop on the cakes. The 

 authors describe their experiments with the feeding of ants and larva?, 

 and they discuss the identification of the fungus, which they consider 

 to be a Xylaria. They compare their observations with those of T. Petch 

 on the same subject in Ceylon. 



* Soc. Bot. Ital., Flora Italica Cryptogamica, i. No. 6 (1910) 194 pp. (53 figs.). 



t Journ. New York Bot. Gard., x. (1909) pp. 198-205 (1 pi. and 6 figs.). 



% Cincinnati, 1910, pp. 446-60 (9 figs.). 



§ Bot. Mag. Tokyo, xxiii. (1909) pp. 97-8. 



|| Rev. Gen. Bot., xxii. (1910) pp. 30-64 (9 figs.). 



