ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPY. ETC. 619 



shape according to environment and age. When young they are mostly 

 ellipsoidal, are filled with a colourless protoplasm, are devoid of granules 

 and vacuoles, and the cell-wall is not clearly differentiated. Spores, one 

 to four in number, are formed in a single cell. In size they average from 

 3 • 5 fi-4 • 5 fjL and resemble a bowler hat in shape. The spores germinate 

 in about 24 hours ; they first double their size, and then protrude a bud 

 which in turn reproduces others when they attain the size of an ordinary 

 cell, 5-7 fi. Growth takes place between 15° and 32° C, the optimum 

 being 28° . S. anomalus is strongly aerobic ; liquefies gelatin ; excites 

 fermentation, the products being mostly carbon dioxide, but also ethyl 

 and other alcohols, organic acids, and fruit ethers. After alluding to 

 the history of the species, the author discusses the relationship between 

 S. anomalus and Endomyces decipiens. 



Experiments with Wine Ferments.* — Prof. R. Chodat and Dr. A. 

 Lendner have carried out experiments with different kinds of yeast for 

 the purpose of testing their value in wine-making from Swiss grapes. 

 The intention was not so much to turn Swiss wines into French, as to 

 render the wine-grower independent of chance by furnishing him with a 

 means of directing the fermentation, and of preventing foreign organ- 

 isms, fuDgi, and bacteria from developing. 



A red wine, Jussy, was tried with six yeasts, and a white wine, 

 Carre, with seventeen. With one yeast the Jnssy grape furnished a 

 wine with a fair amount of alcohol and agreeable flavour ; with the rest 

 the results were unfavourable. The average results with the white wine 

 were, on the whole, less unfavourable. 



Specific Value of Enzyme Formation.f — M. A. Klocker contests the 

 statement of Dubourg that yeast fungi naturally devoid of fermenting 

 power can by artificial means be endowed with this function. The 

 author's experiments gave quite contrary results, and consequently the 

 conclusions drawn by Duclaux from Dubourg's premisses are untenable. 

 Duclaux inferred that the behaviour of alcohol-fungi to sugars could not 

 be used as a specific criterion, while the author on the contrary holds 

 that the enzyme formation of alcohol fermentation fungi is one of the 

 most constant specific characters we possess. 



Significance of Mycorhiza.J — Prof. D. T. Macdougal enumerates all 

 the species of fungi which have been determined as constituting the 

 mycorhiza of different plants. They belong to the Oomycetes, Pyreno- 

 mycetes, Hymenomycetes, and Gasteromycetes ; while the families 

 especially infested by them are the conifers, orchids, heaths, oaks, 

 poplars, and beeches, as well as Vascular Cryptogams and Hepaticse. The 

 Monotropaceae and Wullschlaegelia aphylla (Orchideae) have entirely lost 

 the power of forming chlorophyll, and depend upon the fungi symbiotic 

 with their roots for organic nutriment. The author regards the wide- 

 spread occurrence and distribution of mycorhizas as indicating the great 

 importance of these structures in the nutrition of the greater number of 

 perennial seed-plants. 



* Arch. Sci. Phys. et Nat., ix. (1900) pp. 365-90. 



t Centralbl.JBakt. u. Par., 2"> Abt., vi. (1900) pp. 241-5. 



% Biol. Lectures from Mar. Biol. Lab. Woods Holl, ltf99 (1900) pp. 49-56. 



2 t 2 



