19191 AGRICULTl KAL BOTANY. 727 



which are named, stating that these bodies were pi .sent Id all the forms ex- 

 amined and appeared t<> be Identical In ail respects with those In the higher 

 plants and in the whole animal series from the protozoa to man. He culls 

 attention, however, to their apparent absence or radical differentiation in some 

 of the lower plants. Mitochondria are said to occur invariably in the Plasmodia, 



BS well as in all Stages Of spore formation and probably in all stages of the life 

 cycle So far as known, they take no active part in the formation of the 

 sporangium wall, the complicated spore capsule and capillita, the hypothallus, 

 the pigment, and the lime deposits of the myxomycetes. 



Physiological predetermination: The influence of the physiological condi- 

 tion of the seed upon the course of subsequent growth and upon the yield. — 

 I, The effects of soaking seeds in water, F. Ktnn and C. West (Ann. AppL 

 Biol., 5 (1918), No. 1, pp. 1-10, pis. 2). — The authors have investigated the prob- 

 lem as to the limits of variation in growth and yield which may be determined 

 by the influence of environmental conditions during the seed stage (both before 

 and during germination and later), employing for this purpose seeds of various 

 common plants. A preliminary account is given of the results of this work so 

 far as obtained. 



It is stated that soaking seed in distilled water may affect subsequent growth 

 of the plant in ways impossible to forecast from germination tests. These 

 elicits are very specific, showing considerable differences even with closely 

 allied plants. Beans effectively illustrate these points. Soaking seeds of 

 Phaaeolua vulgaris for 6 hours decreased the top dry weight L'(J per cent. Soak- 

 ing the seeds for 24 hours gave rapid and vigorous germination, but 12 days 

 after sowing, the plants from seeds so treated were much smaller than the 

 controls. Soaking Vicia faba seeds proved increasingly beneficial up to o days 

 as regards both germination and growth. 



The sulphur requirement of the red clover plant, W. E. Tottingham (Jour. 

 Biol Chem., 86 (1918), No. 2. pp. 429-438, pi. 1).— This paper deals with the 

 response Of the common red clover plant to different forms and planes of sul- 

 phur supply under conditions of better control than can be obtained in the 

 ordinary soil culture. A Knop solution was employed with a total salt con- 

 centration of 0.1! per cent by volume. The methods were the same as those 

 previously employed by the author (E. S. R., 31, p. 425), except that the seeds 

 were germinated in pure sand until the seedlings were large enough for fixing 

 in the culture vessels. 



It was found that, under the experimental conditions employed, from 0.1 to 

 0.01 of the usual amount of magnesium sulphate of. Knop's solution was as effi- 

 cient as the full amount for the growth of red clover when the remainder of 

 the magnesium sulphate was replaced by magnesium nitrate. The addition of 

 sodium sulphate and calcium sulphate to the sulphur-free modification of 

 Knop's solution, in amounts equivalent to the sulphur of the unmodified solu- 

 tion, produced a greater yield of dry tops than did the latter solution, calcium 

 sulphate being very efficient in this respect. It appears that the sulphur of this 

 salt functioned in the molecular combination in which it was supplied. The 

 data obtained indicated that deficiency of sulphur supply restricts growth by 

 limiting the synthesis of protein. 



The products of the diastatic degradation of inulin in chicory root, J. 

 \\oi.kf and B. Gesi in (Ann. Inst. Pasteur, SB (191S), No. 8, pp. 71-96, fig. l). — 

 The authors, reporting more fully than formerly (B. S. K., 38, p. 502), state 

 that in sap of chicory roots pure inulin was not fermented by the sacchar- 

 omycetes employed, nor was it attacked by sucrase or other diastase secreted 

 by various yeasts tested. The degradation products of inulin are fermented by 



