210 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



ciilosiis is barely or not at all vesiculiferous ; F. serratus has narrow 

 fronds, barely incised, with a linear prominent midrib. In the roads at 

 Castonill6e F. platycarpus has spirally twisted fronds ; F. vesiculosus is 

 very vesicuhferous, and has the fertile branches syrapodially arranged ; 

 F. serratus has very broad deeply incised fronds. In the Traict, on 

 the muddy shore, F. platycmyus and F. vesiculosus are poorly developed 

 and little fertile, with receptacles large and globular. The vesicles of 

 F. vesiculosus are very large. F. serratus is absent. 



Lithophyllum incrustans.* — F. Heydrich, in a posthumous paper, 

 gives the result of his study during many years of Lithophijllnm 

 incrustans Phil., into which he sinks many of the subsequent species 

 described by various authors. His reasons for doing this are given in 

 full, and many specimens preserved in certain collections are discussed 

 in detail. Some eight years ago he put L. incrustans into a new genus 

 Stereophyllum, but finding this name to be already in use he substitutes 

 for it the new name Crodelia. He gives diagnoses of the genus, the 

 species and all the twenty-five forms, together witli synonymy and 

 distribution ; also a key to the forms and a genealogical table. The 

 geographical distribution is limited at present to the Mediterranean and 

 the Atlantic coast of Europe. The following are the most easily 

 recognized characteristics of C. incrustans -. — (1) The surface is mostly 

 farinaceous ; (2) the inside colour is more lilac than rose ; (3) the base 

 of the four-partite tetrasporangium conceptacle is very globose in 

 transverse fracture ; (i) the cells are mostly rectangular, rarely oval or 

 oblong, always of irregular length ; (5) the cell-connexions are about 

 one-tenth the length of the cell ; (6) the cuticle mostly is quite smooth ; 

 (7) the geographical distribution is limited to the Mediterranean and 

 the Atlantic coast of Europe. The author attributes much of the con- 

 fusion in which the species have been involved hitherto to the zeal of 

 collectors for gathering beautiful and well-developed specimens, which 

 unfortunately, but in accordance with the laws of nature, are sterile ; 

 for it is in the thin encrusting and less attractive specimens that the 

 reproductive organs are to be found. Heydrich claims to have found 

 intermediate forms which connect all into one single species. He adds 

 a postscript about Faraspora fruticulosa, and describes two new forms. 



Fungi. 



(By A. LoRRAiN Smith, P.L.S.) 



Phytophthora infestans.f— G. P. Clinton has published an account 

 of the plant-diseases in Connecticut in 1909-10, and along with these 

 the results of his culture experiments on Phytophthora infestans, to find, 

 if possible, the oospores of the fungus. He was successful in obtaining 

 them, though only in small numbers. He found that they differed con- 

 siderably from those of F. Fhaseoli, but by cultivating the two fungi 

 together on agar he obtained a hybrid, of which the oospores resembled 



* Bibliotheca Botanica. Stuttgart : Schweizerbart (1911) Heft 75, 24 pp. (2 pis.), 

 t Rep. Conn. Agric. Exp. Stat., x. (1911) pp. 713-74. See also Ann. Mycol., 

 ix. (1911) p. 630-1. 



