241 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Bulgaria spongiosa. — Cups Inrge, one inch or more broad, 

 concave or infundibuliform, becoming nearly plane, thin, soft, subge- 

 latinoLis, externally blackish, hymenium blackish-brown, often becom- 

 ing porous when old; stem one-half to one incii long, slender, black, 

 rugose or longitudinally wrinkled ; asci cylindrical ; si)ores uniseriate, 

 glojjose, smooth, granu'ar within and sometimes uninucleate, .0005 of 

 an inch in diameter; paraphyses filiform, colored, circinaie or uncin- 

 ate-curved at the tips. 



Buried sticks under fir trees. 



The Evolntiou of the Crypt 02:ains.— Upon this subject the 



latest writing is from the jiens of MM. Sajiorta and Marion. In two 

 numbers of Nature the work is reviewed by J. Starkie Gardner. A 

 second volume is to follow dealing with the evolution of i'hanero- 

 gams. Of course the group Cryptng.ims has long been recognized 10 

 be a purely artificial one, but not quite so meaningless as its old sub- 

 divisions. The origin of all animals and plants is protoulasm and 

 when we find this in an amorphous condition and yet possessing the 

 attributes of life we cannot be far wrong in thinking that such forms 

 are most nearly like the primordial ones. In certain other org.-misms 

 this i)rotoplasm secretes about itself a wall and presendy chloropiiyll 

 IS differentiated and we have all the essentials of a vegetative life. 

 Thus are we led from the Protista to Protop]iytcs:i\\6. particularly to the 

 Ah^ie. Euiii^i and Lichens are considered as groups whose develop- 

 ment has been arrested by a parasitic habit and to Algiv must we 

 look for an explanation of the manner in which acjuatic vegetation 

 became terrestrial. The more highly organized forms have always 

 retained their atjuatic hal)it, and it is from the lower .4/t,7? that terres- 

 tial forms have originated. The authors think that "some, with flat 

 cellular fronds, such as Uiva, crept, as it is supposed, face to the 

 ground and became ancestors of the Hepaticee. Others, more confer - 

 void, ]:)roduced a ihallus whose growth, necessarily apical, became 

 complex by simple vegetative multiplication. Foliary appendicles 

 were given off, and a sort of jjlantlet witii rootlets, stem, and leaves, 

 all strictly cellular, came into existence, capable, like the Mosses at 

 the present day, of agamous reproduction. In the earliest stage of 

 growth of the Lguisetacea', of Ferns, and of O/Z/ioglossete, we see :i 

 similar primordial cellular jjlant, called a Prothallus, develop from the 

 spf)re, and resembling in every respect the lower A/gw." 



The authors lay a great deal of stress upon the effect of the re- 

 productive act upon the differentiation of ])rimordial plants. Two 

 widely different groups would be developed by "tardy" reproduction 

 and by "precocious" reproduction. In low forms reproduction ar- 

 rests nutritive life. Hence fjrms like the Mosses ami HepaticiC in 

 which the rejjroduction is tardy, would have a long period of vegeta- 

 tive life in which to adapt themselves to new conditions. In fact 

 some mosses seem very little de|)endent ujion sexual reproduction but 

 can ]iropagate themselves ra])idly by their radicles. The "fruit" of 

 the moss is really a distinct i)lanllet which in an asexual way (rives 



