MONOGRAPHIE DES CAULERPES. 455 



laying bare life -histories of the different types, but the method 

 has done very little towards settling questions of wide bearing on the 

 relationships of the groups of fungi to each other. It remains 

 exceedingly improbable that much will ever be discovered in this 

 direction, since we cannot penetrate the remote past, and Dr. 

 Meschinelli's labours in collecting the evidence of fossil fungi show 

 us how blighted must be any hopes in that field. 



The most interesting part of the memoir relates to the author's 

 evidence on the relationships of the resupinate forms of Polyporei 

 to the typical forms and indeed of the groups of Basidiornycetes, 

 especially the AuriculariecB, Tremellini, and Dacryomycetes. 



He has exceedingly interesting remarks on the comparison of 

 tropical and temperate fungi, the large number common to both 

 climes, the relative abundance of species and of individuals. His 

 methods of culture and improvements (for the tropics) on those 

 already well known are of no less help and interest. By this 

 excellent and sound piece of work Dr. Holtermann steps at once 

 into a high place among investigators of fungi, though whether the 

 Brefeldian school will accept some of his dicta gratefully is much 

 to be doubted, and on this account he may have less honour in his 

 own country for a season — a short one, we hope. 



G. M. 



Monographie cles Caulerpes. Par Madame Weber van Bosse. Extr. 

 des ' Annales du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg,' vol. xv., 

 pp. 243-401, plates xx.-xxxiv. 



It would be hard to conceive of anything better done than this 

 admirable monograph of one of the most interesting of plant 

 genera. While the limits of the genus are marked by its unique 

 vegetative structure, the species are in many cases hard to dis- 

 criminate. There is probably not another case among plants at all 

 comparable with that of Caulerpa. A large genus of wide distri- 

 bution in the warm shore waters right round the tropical and 

 subtropical belt, varying in its forms, which markedly recall the 

 outward appearances of such diverse land plants as cacti, Naias, 

 cypress, heaths, clubmosses, mosses, &c. and of most plentiful occur- 

 rence, we yet know absolutely nothing of any reproduction except 

 by probable vegetative proliferations. The authoress's method has 

 been on the whole guided by a laudable tendency to reduce the 

 species by clubbing them, either on the head, or together, and in 

 almost all cases they (or their authors) have deserved the treatment. 

 I cannot help thinking (apart from personal feelings) that she has 

 carried her method rather far in the case of G. paspaloides, into 

 which she has reduced my C. phyllaphlaston. An inspection of 

 plate XXX. shows at a glance the method by which she has 

 established the links to her satisfaction. I am not convinced. 

 The only omission is a grave one, viz. that of an index, which I 

 hope will be supplied with the complete volume of the Annales. 



Finally, I have nothing but praise for the admirably thorough 

 manner in which Madame Weber van Bosse has worked her way 



