88 SUM.MAKY OF CUKRKNT KESEAHCUES RELATING TO 



collected on the German East Front during- the war. The writers give 

 the general topography, the climate, etc. The lichen-flora showed most 

 affinity with that of East Prussia. The special earth lichens are noted 

 as growing on soil poor or rich in lime. As to the rocks of the district 

 there was an absence of lime and a corresponding scarcity of calcicolous 

 lichens. Epiphytic lichens are carefully delimited according to the trees 

 on which they were mostly found. The complete list of lichens found is 

 given, and then follows a comparison with other districts. The great 

 similarity as to the lichen-flora between Litau and Prussia is again 

 commented on. A. L. S. 



Lichen Symbiosis. — A. H. Church {Joiirn. Bot., 1920, 58, 213-9, 

 2G2-7). The autlior's views on the origin of lichens may be best 

 summed up by the closing paragraphs of his paper : — " Lichens tli us 

 present an interesting case of an algal race, deteriorating along the 

 lines of a heterotrophic existence, yet arrested, as it were, on the somatic 

 down-grade by the adoption of intrusive algal units of lower degree to 

 subserve photosynthesis (much in the manner of the marine worm Couvo- 

 lata). Thus arrested, tlieylhave been enabled to retain more definite 

 expression of more deeply inheritant factors of sea-weed habit and 

 construction than any other race of fungi ; though closely paralleled by 

 such types as Xylarin (Ascomycete) and C/aw<r/« (Basidiomycete) which 

 have followed the full fungus-progression as holosaprophytic on decaying 

 plant-residues." 



" There can be little doubt that such a view will enlarge one's 

 conception, not only of the remarkable history of these often despised 

 fungus-races, as compared on one hand with the surviving Floridefe of 

 the sea, and on the other with the great range of Ascomycetous phyla ; 

 but also it must throw light on the general problems of tliB changes 

 of biological environment which may have been effective in such a 

 striking response as included within what has been termed the period of 

 the suba^rial transmie:ration." A. L. S. 



'o* 



New Portuguese Lichens.— (Ioncalo Sampaio {Porlo, 1920, 8 pp.). 

 Diagnoses are published with biological notes of a number of new species 

 of crustaceous lichens, Lecideaceae and Lecanoraceit, with one foliose 

 species, Lobaria molUssima Gong., intermediate in appearance between 

 Lobaria scrobiculata and Peltigera limbata. The lichens were collected 

 in Lusitania. A. L. S. 



Spanish Lichens from the Wilkomm Herbarium. — GoncalO' 

 Sampaio {Ass. Esp. Para, el Profi. Giencias Madrid, 1917, 135-44). 

 The plants have been preserved in the University of Coimbra, and 

 lichens form only a small part of the general collection. Gongalo, who 

 has overhauled these, found among them two new species, Phijsma 

 /mjjanicuni and Acarospora (jranatensis. A. L. S. 



Portuguese Lichens. — Goncalo Sampaio {Ann. Acad. Pohjtechnica do- 

 Porto, 1918, 12, 1-1.5). The author has listed, with full descriptions, 

 5f) species of lichens belonging to many different families and genera ; 

 several species are new to science. A. L. S. 



