o 



3.58 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Myrmecophilous Plants.* — Herr M. Raciborski describes a number 

 of fresh myrmecophilous plants from Java. Pterospermum javanicum 

 (Sterculiaceae) possesses " pearl-glands " contained in cups, which serve 

 as food for the ants ; the cups appear to be metamorphosed stipules. 

 Eaciborski was, however, quite unable to determine that the ants 

 exercised either a favourable or a hurtful effect on the host-plant. All 

 the climbing species of Gnetum in Java produce similar pearl-glands ; 

 they are here borne on the surface of the nodes and internodes. Here 

 also they did not appear to present any special attraction to ants. 



B. CRYPTOGAMIA. 



Cryptogamia Vascularia. 



Lignin in Vascular Cryptogams f — Using the phloroglucin test, 

 Dr. K. Linsbauer has come to the conclusion that lignin is much more 

 widely distributed in Vascular Cryptogams than has generally been sup- 

 posed. He finds it in all families, and in a great variety of organs ; — 

 in the xylem elements, the mechanical elements, the epiderm, especially 

 in the guard-cells of the stomates, and in the outer wall of the sporanges. 



Conditions of Spore-formation in Acrostichum.ij: — Herr M. Eaci- 

 borski notes that in an Aerosiichum sp. indet., no sporophylls are 

 produced in ordinary conditions of growth ; but that when the rhizome 

 is made to grow in a vertical position, fertile fronds make their appear- 

 ance. The same is the case also with other ferns. 



Muscinese. 



New Genera of Mosses. — In a final instalment of his paper on South 

 African Mosses, the late C. Miiller § describes a new genus of Fabroniacese, 

 Fabronidium g. n., with the following diagnosis : — Habitus Fabroniae. 

 Inflorescentia monoica ; peristomium simplex ; dentes 16, anguste lanceo- 

 lato-subulati, rufuli, linea longitudiuali secedente usque ad basim di- 

 cranoideo-divisi, cruribus lincaribus articnlatis plus minus solitariis vel 

 cohserentibus. 



Cryptoleptodon is the name of a new genus of Musci from Western 

 India, described by MM. F. Eenauld and J. Cardot,|| with the following 

 diagnosis : — Caulis secundarius, pendulus, flexuosus, pinnatim et bipin- 

 natim ramosus ; folia obtusa, costata, be via, siccitate transversim 

 undulata ; flores dioici ; vaginula pilosa ; calyptra cucullata, pilosa ; 

 capsula immersa ; peristomium duplex ; exostomii dentes 16, intus 

 trabeculati ; endostomium e membrana ultra medium dentium elata, in 

 16 processibus irregularibus fugacibus dilacerata compositum. 



MM. F. Eenauld and J. Cardot *fi now regard the moss (from Congo) 

 which they previously described under the name Cyathophorum (?) 

 Dupuissii, as (provisionally) the type of a new genus to which they give 

 the name Bhacopilopsis, with tie following diagnosis : — Habitu Ehaco- 

 piloideo. Caulis repens, rami erecti, uno latere rectangulariter pinnati ; 



* Flora, Ixxxvii. (1900) pp. 38-45 (6 fies.). 



t Oesterr. Bot. Ztitsclir.. xlix. (.1899) pp. 317-23. 



1 Flora, Ixxxvii. (1900) pp. 25-8 (2 figs.). 



§ Hedwigia, xxxviii. (1899) p. 132. Cf. this Journal, 1899, p. 416. 



|| Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belgique, xxxviii. 1899 (1900) 2 me fasc, p. 30. 



t Rev. Bryol., xxvii. (1900) p. 47. 



