696 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Sicilian Bryophytes.* — G. Zodda publishes his second contribution 

 to the Bryophytes of Sicily. The district explored was that known as 

 Nebrodi in the high valley of the Simeto and the Flascio, in the pro- 

 vinces of Messina and Catania. The soil is mainly composed of sand and 

 siliceous cement of the Lower Miocene, and the habitats are : (1) pasture 

 land ; (2) rocks ; (:->) bogs and swampy soil ; (4) streams ; (5) trunks of 

 trees. Of these the second and fifth were by far the richest. The author 

 gives short lists of the species commonest in each. The pleurocarpi are 

 more plentiful than the acrocarpi as regards quantity, and the perennial 

 species predominate over the annual. Extraordinarily poor is the 

 material of Hepatic^, only four species being recorded. This the author 

 attributes to the want of suitable habitats in the district examined. 

 Eighty-three species of mosses are recorded, of which six new varieties 

 are described by Roth. 



North American Muscineae.f — J. L. Sheldon publishes a list of all 

 the hepaticai known to occur in West Virginia, compiled from previous 

 short lists and from specimens in his own herbarium and in that of the 

 West Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station. So far as possible the 

 habitat, locality, and collector's name, are given for the 51) species here 

 recorded, and the list is preceded by some general remarks on species 

 growing in certain localities. 



J. M. Holzingerif: has made a study of the Muscineae of Washington 

 and its vicinity, and pubhshes a list of all the species he has found. In 

 despair of finding any real correspondence between the mosses recorded 

 in local lists and the specimens deposited in the Washington Herbarium, 

 he has himself placed in that herbarium a specimen of every species 

 quoted, amounting to 189 mosses and 19 hepatica3. The locahty of each 

 record is given in the list. 



N. C. Kindberg§ describes 82 new species and sub-species from 

 various parts of the North American continent. 



Muscinese of French West Africa. || — E. G. Paris reports on a 

 further collection of mosses and hepatica^, collected by M. Pobeguin, 

 administrator of Timbo in Fonta-Djallon. This collection contains 12 

 new species, one of which belongs to Levierella and another to Helico- 

 dontium. Of the former genus only 2 species have been known hitherto, 

 one occurring in the upper valley of the Ganges, and the other in 

 Abyssinia. Of the 20 hitherto known species of Helicodontium only 

 4 have been recorded outside America. The present list enumerates 

 32 mosses and 5 hepatic^e. 



Air Chambers in Hepaticse.l" — C. R. Barnes and W. J. G. Land 

 publish the first of a series of bryological papers, and the present con- 

 tribution deals with the origin of air chambers. It was always supposed 

 that the intercellular spaces in liverworts took their origin in the same 

 manner as in vascular plants ; and in 1879 Leitgeb ascribed the origin 

 of the mucilage clefts and chambers of Anthoceros and Dendroceros to 



* 



Malpighia, xxi. (1907) pp. 25-37. f Bryologist, x. (1907) pp. 80-4. 

 X Tom. cit., pp. 85-92. § Rev. Bryolog., xxxiv. (1907) pp. 87-92. 



II Tom. cit., pp. 93-9. ^ Bot. Gazette, xliv. (1907) pp. 197-218. 



