694 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



affinity is with the Equisetineae. (13) An endophytic fungus is always 

 present in Ophioglossacese, both in gametophyte and sporophyte ; and 

 in 0. pendulum and 0. nioluccanum the sporophyte appears to be infected 

 from the prothallium. (14) Under the name 0. moluccammi Scblecht 

 evidently three distinct species have been included. 0. intermedium 

 Hook is a good species. 



Sporangium of Ophioglossales.* — L. L. Burlingame describes in 

 detail the development of the sporangium of the Ophioglossales. In 

 summing up his results he makes a compact statement in three parallel 

 columns of what happens respectively in the three genera of Ophio- 

 glossales — Ophioglossu7n, Helminthostachys, Botrychium. This tabular 

 statement serves to show the contrasts. He also sums up the features 

 common to the three genera, namely : (1) the breaking down of the 

 inner layers of the wall ; (2) the penetration of a plasmodium, derived 

 from the tapetal cells, among the sporogenous cells ; (3) the failure of 

 the mother-cells to contribute to the tapetal plasmodium ; (4) the forma- 

 tion of resting nucleus after the first maiotic division ; (5) the appearance 

 in the spore-plasm of a phase of decreasing density followed by one of 

 increasing density, the former possibly connected with the rapid growth 

 of the young spore-coat (no data from Botrychium) ; (6) the spores rich 

 in starch ; (7) the tetrads in vacuoles of the plasmodium. 



Bryophyta. 

 (By A. Gepp.) 



British Moss Catalogue. t — The Moss Exchange Club have just 

 issued a census catalogue of British mosses, the result of the combined 

 effort of the members of the club to compile as complete a record as 

 possible of the distribution of the 619 British species and their varieties 

 throughout the 112 Watsonian vice-county divisions of Great Britain, and 

 Praeger's 40 county divisions of Ireland. Explanatory notes are supplied 

 by W. Ingham and H. N. Dixon, and these are followed by a table of 

 the county divisions, with their reference and their boundary limits. 

 The very numerous sources from which the catalogue has been compiled 

 are duly set forth in detail, carefully arranged in geographical sequence, 

 and provide an almost exhaustive record of the very scattered papers on 

 British bryology and many manuscript lists. 



New British Moss.| — P. Culmann describes a new species found 

 by W. E. Nicholson on the wall of a culvert at Amberley, in Sussex. In 

 structure the plant approaches Barbula rigidula, but differs in habit, in 

 which respect it approaches Schistidium. It appears to be a species of 

 either Barbula or Didymodon. 



British Hepatic8e.§ — W. H. Pearson publishes an introduction to 

 the British Hepaticse as an incentive to a study of this group. He 



* Bot. Gazette, xliv. (1907) pp. 34-56 (2 pis.). 



t Census Catalogue of British Mosses. York : Coultas and Volans, 1907, 

 63 pp. X Rev. Bryolog., xxxiv. (1907) pp. 100-2 (figs.). 



§ Ann. Rep. and Trans. Manchester Micro. Soc, 1906 [1907] pp. 46-53 (1 pi.). 



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