BOTANY. 485 



of laceration show remarkable changes in their protoplasmic contents, 

 the bands of chk)rophyll being broken. Cooke's finely illustrated work 

 on " British Desmids" has reached parts 7-10. Oliver has a valuable 

 paper " On the Obliteration of Sieve-tubes in Larainariea^ " (Ann. Bot., 

 i); Holmes has a short note (Trans. Bot. Soc, Edinb., xvii), on the fruc- 

 tification of Splincelaria raflicans and aS. oUvacea'y Scott, "On Nuclei 

 in Oscillaria and Tolypothrix," (Journ. Linn. Soc, Loud., xxiv) ; Nord- 

 stedt, "The fresh-water Algjie of I^ew Zealand," (see Bot. Centralbl., 

 xxxi); Piccone, " Desseminationof Alg.eby Fish" (Nuov. Giorn. Bot., 

 Ital., XIX). 



CHARACE^. 



Dr. Allen has given the results of his long-continued studies of those 

 little-known plants in his " Charace.ie of America," part i. This part is 

 devoted to the introduction, morphology, and classification, the descrip- 

 tive portion being reserved for a final part. The key to the classifica- 

 tion is translated from ]N"ordstedt, with additions of American species 

 detected since its original publication. The Characeas are world-wide 

 in distribution and number in all something over two hundred forms, 

 distributed as follows : JSltella, 93 species and varieties; Tolypelln, 13; 

 Lamprothamn)is,4:', IJchnothamnus, 3; Chara, 102. The same author has 

 given (Torr. Bull., xiv) notes on Characea?, in which several new forms 

 are described : Nltella Mitfhnafafrom the Feejee Islands ; N. Morongii, 

 from Nantucket, and TolypeUa (afterwards changed to NiteUa) Macounii, 

 from the Niagara River. Vines has a short note on Apospory in GharaceiB 

 in Ann. Bot., i. Knowlton (Bot. Gaz., xii) has described a fossil species 

 of Chara (C. compressa) from the Wasatch group at Wales, Utah. This 

 is the second American species found fossil, the other {C. glomerata Lx.) 

 being from the Green Eiver group at Florissant, Colorado. 



FUNGI. 



The activity in the investigation of fungi still continues unabated, 

 and although few large works have appeared during the year, much 

 material, in the form of short papers containing descriptions of new 

 species, revision of genera, etc., has been contributed. 



The most important general work is the continuation of Saccardo's 

 " Sylloge Fungorum.'' De Bary's excellent work has been translated 

 by Garnsey under the title of "Comparative Morphology and Biology 

 of the Fungi, Mycetoza and Bacteria." It is indispensable to all ele- 

 mentary students of these groups, and is the best working book that 

 we have. Burrell and Earll's "Parasitic Fungi of Illinois, the Eresi- 

 phere," is one of the most valuable American publications. It describes 

 about forty species and reduces many so called species to synonyms 

 of well-known forms. Cohn's " Kryptogamen Flora v. Schlesein, 

 Pilze," for which Schroeter is preparing the fungi, has reached the 

 second part. It concludes the description of the Myxogastres, and 



