812 EXUTKACTS AND ABSTliACTS. 



and from one to four feet high, sometimes spreading or prostrate in 

 Bandy or gravelly soil. 



(3.) Py'xidi-Montelia. — Utricle thin and small, shorter than the 

 cuspidate-tipped bracts, circumscissilc in the manner of true Amaran- 

 tus ; fertile inflorescence in slender virgate paniculate spikes, less 

 glomerate than in the preceding ; stigmas similar or shorter. 



A. tamariscina. — Amarantus tamariscimis, I^utt., in Trans. Am. 

 Phil. Soc, n. ser., v. 165. Montelia tamariscinus, Gray, I.e., in part. 

 Arkansas to Texas and New Mexico. 



Our botanists along and near the seaboard are particularly requested 

 to examine the species they meet with, and to send good fruiting 

 specimens to the writer. The distinctions between A. cannahijia and 

 A. rhyssocarpa should be especially looked after. The fruit of the 

 former is hardly to be found in any of our larger herbaria. Florida 

 specimens of any Acnida arc much desired. So also are fertile speci- 

 mens of any from Arkansas and Texas, especially oi A. famariscina. 

 Nuttall's specimens of this are not even in flower, so that he was 

 unaware that the plant was dioecious and the fertile flowers 

 achlamydeous. Although the plant is common in Texas, ripe fruit is 

 little known. — From the "American Naturalist,''^ August, 1876. 



Sur le developpement du fruit dei Coprins et la pretendue sexualiU 

 des Basidiomycetes ; Sur le developpement du fruit des Chcetomium et la 

 pretendue sexualite des Ascomijcetcs. Par M. Pn. Van TiEcnKM. 

 (Annates des Sciences Naturallcs, vi" serie, tome 2). — Hitherto, ever 

 since the publication of Prof, de Bary's views, the sexuality of the 

 higher Fungi has been admitted without question, and some flrst ex- 

 periments undertaken by M. Van Tieghcm and briefly recorded by 

 him seemed to boar out those views, which received further support 

 from results obtained by Rees, Kirchner, and Eidam. In Coprinus 

 some of the mycelial filaments bear bundles of rod-like bodies, which 

 became disarticulated and resisted germination. On other filaments 

 were produced vesicular expansions, generally terminated by a short 

 papilla, which died if left to themselves ; but the rods, if applied to 

 them, appeared to become anastomosed and to enter their contents into 

 the vesicles, which then continued with, developing into hasidiosporous 

 fruits. These facts seemed to indicate the existence of sexuality, 

 the rods being the male element {pollinodia), the vesicles the female 

 clement {carpiogonia). However, on further examination, it was 

 found that the rods have the faculty of germinating ; that they are, 

 in fact, conidia — mere elements of vegetative reproduction ; and 

 similar results were obtained in the case of Chcetomium and Sordaria, 

 the two Ascomycetous genera examined, whose supposed y)o///;jof/m arc 

 held by M. Van Tieghem to be merely the commencement of the wall 

 investing the non-sexually produced ascogonium. This function is made 

 manifest in a very beautiful manner in cases where the ascogonium, 

 still uncovered, comes in contact with a mycelial thread, when growth 

 is completely arrested. Prof, de Bary will have no easy task in re- 

 futing these views ; one point in his favour is the undoubted circum- 

 stance of sexual reproduction holding in some of the lower Fungi, e.g., 

 Mucorini and Peronospora. With these facts before one, it is difficult 



