128 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Agaric with Green Spores.* — Dr. Cooke has recently received 

 from Ohio, U.S., a dried specimen of an agaric, with all the external 

 features of a large Lepiota, with a pileus 9 inches in diameter, which 

 has spores when first thrown down, of a bright green colour, but upon 

 drying these become of a duller verdigris green. This fungus has 

 been named Agaricus Morgani Peck, and is interesting as being 

 unique in the colour of the spores. It is not an accidental circum- 

 stance which has affected a single specimen, but one which is cba- 

 racteristic of the species. The individual spores, in the dried state, 

 exhibit no colour when the light is thrown through them on the 

 stage of the Microscope. Probably this may not be the case with 

 fresh spores. 



Development of the Maize-rust, Ustilago Maydis.f — A. Eenner 

 thus describes the germination of the spores of this fungus. In moist air 

 they germinate in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The promy- 

 celium protrudes through a small, scarcely visible spot in the exospore, 

 and generally forms a tube equalling the spore in length, but scarcely 

 one-third or one-half its diameter. On this are produced laterally and 

 terminally by budding minute ellipsoidal sporidia. But sometimes 

 the promycelium develops into a longer tube, which divides by 

 septa into several cells, the sporidia originating from these. The 

 sporidia are numerous, and are arranged in branching rows, which 

 break up on contact with a drop of water, a slender, germinating 

 filament, which is frequently branched, proceeding from each spori- 

 dium. At the spot where the spores are to be formed, a number of 

 branches of the mycelium become massed into a larger or smaller 

 ball. The cell-walls of these branches swell up strongly and form a 

 gelatinous mass, in which are a number of lumps consisting of 

 granular protoplasm, produced by contraction at particular spots of 

 the hyphae. Each lump is surrounded by a hyaline layer of proto- 

 plasm. These lumps increase in size while they become invested 

 with a homogeneous cell-wall, on which can soon be detected the 

 brown spiny exospore and a thin endospore. 



History of Development of the TIredineae. J — Dr. J. Schroter gives 

 an important paper on this subject, which is, however, too full of the 

 detailed description of species and of the mutual relationship of 

 different forms to admit of a satisfactory abstract. TJredo Ledi or 

 ^cidium Ledi is the conidial form of a Coleosporium, of which the 

 author has discovered the teleuto-form. The uredo of the rhododen- 

 dron also, in all probability, belongs to a Coleosporium. The secidia 

 and teleuto-forms of Eanunculaceae are many of them connected with 

 uredo-forms which have their home on grasses, ^cidium Humicis 

 is a stage in the development of Puccinia Magnusiana, parasitic on 

 PJiragmites. A large number of Puccinice grow on species of Carex ; 



* 'Grevillea,' viii. (1879) p. 53. 



t ' Wandersammlunii: ungarischer Aerzte u. Natnrforscher zu Budapest ; 

 naturwissenscbaftliche Section, Aug. 30, 1879 ' ; see * Bot. Zeit.,' xxxvii. (1879) 

 p. 676. 



X Cobn, • Beitrage zur Biol, dor Pflanzen,' iii. ; see ' Hedwigia,' xviii. (1879) 

 p. 134. 



