210 Allgemeines. — Biologie. 



cific cells; or we may regard the germ cells as essentially alike and 

 the difference in their products as due to environment. The latter 

 view is the simpler for the former complicates the problem of the 

 transmission of characters. Recent work tends to show that the 

 cytological distinction between the two generations is not the cause 

 of the differences between them. We seem entitled to assume that 

 under the same conditions the spore and Zygote would give rise to 

 similar bodies. They are exposed to profoundly different conditions, 

 the Spore developing in direct relation to soil, water, light etc., 

 while the Zygote is removed from these influences and subjected to 

 the maternal influence, which in the Bryophyta lasts practically 

 throughout the life of the sporogonium; though the sporophyte of 

 the Pteridophyta eventually becomes free from the prothallus the 

 influence of the latter on the preformed parts of the sporophyte 

 may be held to exercise a "formative induction" on its further 

 development. This ontogenetic hypothesis of the origin of alternation, 

 is, in its phylogenetic application, an homologous theory. In its 

 application it is assumed that the Archegoniatae originated from 

 forms in which externally similar sexual (haploid) and asexual (di- 

 ploid) forms alternated regularly, though sporangia and gametangia 

 may originally have been homologous. The spread to land of such 

 forms would probably lead to association of the two generations in 

 more than one series of organisms, so that the monophyletic or 

 polyphyletic origin of the different groups of Bryophyta and Pteri- 

 doph5'^ta would, in each case be a matter for enquiry. The paper 

 concludes with a short provisional survey of the broad features ot 

 the two generations in Ferns-, Lycopods and Horsetails, the detailed 

 application of the theory being postponed. A comparison is made 

 between the leaf and a branch or brauch System of the fern pro- 

 thallus; on such a view the fern sporophyte would be primitively 

 megaphyllous. On the other hand the leaves of the Lycopod and 

 Horsetail sporophytes are regarded as corresponding to the assi- 

 milating lobes of their respective prothalli. These groups would be 

 primitively microphyllous. Isabel Browne (London.) 



Rosendahl, H. V., Mikroskopisk analys af brödfynd frnn 

 400 — 500talen. [Mikroskopische Analyse eines Brotes aus 

 dem 5. oder 6. Jahrhundert]. (Svensk bot. Tidskr. 1909. III. 1. 

 p. 41 — 46. Textfiguren. Deutsches Resume.) 



Bei der archäologischen Untersuchung einer vorgeschichtlichen 

 Ansiedelung in der Schwedischen Provinz Oestergötland fand 

 man in einer Kulturschicht von kohlenhaltigem Humus einen klei- 

 nen, halbkugeligen, verkohlten Gegenstand, der vom Verf. als ein 

 verkohltes Gerstenbrot, bereitet aus grobgemahlenem und mit Stein- 

 splitterchen (des Mahlsteins?) vermengtem Mehl bestimmt wurde. 



Dieses Resultat stimmt auch zu der Tatsache, dass die Gerste 

 von Alters her und bis tief in das 15. Jahrhundert hinein das ein- 

 zige in Schweden angebaute Getreide war, während Roggen und 

 Weizen noch in der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts als in Schweden 

 neue und ungewöhnliche Getreidearten bezeichnet wurden. 



Grevillius' (Kempen a. Rh.) 



Lidfopss,B., Ueber den biologischen Effekt des Anthocyans. 

 (Botaniska Notiser 1909, H. 2. p. 65—81. Mit 4 Textfiguren.) 

 Bei Lund fand Verf. eine Form von Veronica hederaefoUa, deren 



