492 RECORD OP CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



precipitated mycoprotein is easily soluble in water, alkalies, and 

 acids, but after being dried at 110° it is no longer perfectly soluble 

 in water. It exhibits the usual properties of an albumen, and is 

 laevorotatory, [a] = — 79. Acids convert it into peptones. The 

 authors believe that this simple form of albumen is obtained from a 

 simple organism ; a general law may be deduced, the more complex 

 the organism tlie more complex its proximate chemical constituents. 



The residue left insoluble on treating the Bacteria with dilute 

 alkali, consists of cellulose, and amounts to about 5 per cent, of 

 their weight ; it contains a little nitrogen. This may point to some 

 albumen not removed, for Loew analyzed similar cell-membranes, and 

 found them to contain a mere trace, or no nitrogen. 



Hernia of the Cabbage.* — M. Woronin admits that he was pre- 

 viously in error in attributing all tuberous swellings without excep- 

 tion in the root of the cabbage to the attacks of Plnsmodio])liora.^ 

 The true hernia (termed Kropf in Germany, Kapuatuaja-kila in liussia) 

 he still maintains to be always due to this parasite, and never to the 

 attacks of insects. There are, however, swellings of a different 

 character, in which not a trace of the Plasmodiophora is to be found, 

 which are true galls, produced by insects. These may be dis- 

 tinguished by their resisting decay for a considerable time ; while 

 roots attacked by the true hernia very quickly decompose and give 

 out an offensive odour. 



Lichenes. 



Archil-lichens of California.^ — Hesse lias submitted the archil- 

 producing lichens from California to a chemical examination. He 

 gives the ' Neue Freio . Prcsse ' of Vienna credit for the statement iu 

 1871 that 300 persons liad gone from New York to Lower California 

 to collect these lichens, then lately discovered. They were found on 

 hard, rocky soils, near the coast, and a single person could collect a 

 ton, valued at K300, in four days. In the year 1870, the archil sold 

 in the United States from this source was valued at ^14,900, and the 

 extract prepared from it at K4700. The lichens found their way to 

 the London market, and specimens reached him late in 1871. They 

 had been pronounced to be the well-known lichen Boccella tinctoria ; 

 but doubting the correctness of this view, Hesse sent specimens to 

 Laurer, the licheuologist, who considered it to be new, and proposed 

 for it the name Boccella fruiicosa, placing it between B. tinctoria and 

 B. fuciformis, and nearer the latter. Hesse himself placed it as a 

 variety of B. fuciformis. The colour was extracted with milk of 

 lime, the lime was thrown down by carbon dioxide gas, and the chro- 

 mogen was purified by crystallization from hot alcohol. When pure 

 it exhibited all the properties of /y-erythriu, and gave on analysis 

 the same formula, CjoH^.^Ooq. It is optically inactive, and yields 

 picroerythrin and orsellinic ether when decomposed by alcohol. 

 Beside erythrin the lichen contains very small quantities of rocellic 



* 'Bot. Zeit.,' xxxviii. (1880) p. 54. f See this Journal, ii. (1879) p. .313. 



I 'Liebig's Aun.,'cxcix. (lS7!))p. 338; sec' Am. Journ. Sci.,' xix.(1880) p. 229. 



