664 Physiologie. — Palaeontologie. — Eumycetes. 



the automatic mercury valves that prevent water, absorbed by the 

 porous cup in times of rain, from entering the reservoir are con- 

 tained within the reservoir itself. Liability or breakage and difficult}' 

 of adjustment are reduced to a minimum in this instrument. 



Sam. F. Trelease. 



Holden, R., Contributions to the Anatom}^ ofMesozoic 

 Conifers. II. Cretaceous lignites from Cliffwood, New 

 Jersey. (The Botan. Gazette. LVIII. p. 168-177. Fl. 12-15. 

 1914.) 



The author gives the foUowing summary at the end of the 

 paper: 



An Araucartoxylon from the Raritan Cretaceous of Cliffwood, 

 New Jersey, shows bars of Sanio near the pith of the stem, si- 

 milar to those in the ebne axis of the living Araucariiieae. 



Brachyoxyla from the same locality are as a rule very similar 

 to those from Kreischerville, Staten Island, differing only 

 in such details as arrangement of medullary sclerites and structure 

 of the hast. 



The Cupvessinoxyla of Cliffwood all lack cellulose bars ot 

 Sanio in the mature wood , and should on that account be placed 

 in the new genus Paracupresshwxylon. 



The occurrence of 3 absolutely typical Püyoxyla, and not a 

 Single typical Araucartoxylon, among these lignites seems to indi- 

 cate that in thracing back the families of living conifers it is the 

 Ahietineae which remain unchanged, and the Araucarineae which 

 become less and less like living representatives of that family. The 

 same conclusion may be drawn from a consideration of the lignites 

 of Staten Island. 



The variety of structure of these Mesozoic araucarians has its 

 bearing on the question of the monophyletic or diphyletic origin 

 of the Coniferales. There are certain features, which have been 

 supposed to sharply differentiate the araucarians from the other 

 families. Both fossil and comparative anatomical evidence demon- 

 strate the fallacy of this view. As regards wood structure, every 

 feature of the Ahietineae — resin canals, bars of Sanio, thick- 

 walled pitted raj^s, wood parenchyma (terminal and diffuse), even 

 to as small and unimportant details as fusion pits in the rays and 

 regularly alternating bands of hard and soft bast — has been 

 found in the Araucarineae, living or extinct. As regards strobilar 

 anatomy. Kam es has shown that the stages in the reduction of 

 the female cone are closely paralleled in various cupressineous and 

 taxodineous genera, and the writer has shown that in one Mesozoic 

 araucarian {Voltsia) there was a double cone scale, like that of the 

 living genus Cryptomeria. In view of all the facts, it seems evident 

 that the conifers, as a whole, are derived from the same ancestral 

 stock, and that the Ahietineae are more like that stock than the 

 Araucarineae. Jongmans. 



Bail, T., Ueber die Hexenbesen der Edeltanne. (Oesterr. 

 Gartenzeit. X. 10. p. 156—160. 2 Fig. Wien 1915.) 

 In der Einleitung ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Edeltannen- 

 rostes {Aecidium elntinum) — Verf. sah die Hexenbesen in Menge 

 auf den Edeltannen bei Wildbad im Seh warz walde, ohne dass 

 man dort gegen das Uebel ankämpft. Die „grosse Tanne" im Roll- 



