836 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



which reason Rathay proposes to confer on it the specific name 

 Exoascns Wiesneri Eathay. Besides Priinus avium, it occurs also 

 on P. Cerasus and Chamcecerasus, causing similar broom-like mal- 

 formations. 



New Vegetable Structures from Coal and Anthracite. — In a 

 separate communication, Herr Paul F. Eeinsch gives, with two jilates, 

 an account of some of the results of his long researches into the flora 

 of past epochs. The dejiosits mentioned are, he believes, largely com- 

 jDOsed of microscopic vegetable structures of extreme simplicity. In 

 the older Devonian strata (of Illinois) he has found bodies which have 

 some resemblance to the Myxomycetes, and these he has found again 

 in other parts of North America, and he has been able to trace them 

 to Upper Jurassic formations. Taking altogether the numerous 

 localities in which he has found them, he is certain that the coal is in 

 no way made up of the remains of the higher plants, which are in 

 comparatively small proportion as comj)ared with vegetable forms of 

 the very lowest grade. 



The most remarkable body which he has met with is a strongly 

 polarizing substance, which is either found in regular isolated 

 spheres and polygonal bodies, or in mass in the clefts of crystals. 

 Where most constant in size and structure, they are 0" 5-2 '5 mm. 

 high, formed of a dark grey, hard, horny substance, of a rather higher 

 specific gravity than ordinary coal, and made of spheres • 13-0 * 24 mm. 

 in diameter. The spheres consist of a radially arranged, more or 

 less brown, granular substance, with scarcely any indication of a con- 

 centric striation. They hardly resemble, morphologically, any plants 

 already known to us, and it will be necessary to form for them a 

 sj)ecial division. 



After giving a detailed account of their structure, the author says 

 that, it being certain that we have not here to do with " mineral 

 bodies," it follows that either: (1) they are crystals formed from the 

 dissolution of some organic compound, comparable to the " sphtero- 

 crystals " deposited from alcoholic or aqueous solutions of chenopodin ; 

 or (2) they are organized bodies, which are either independent plants 

 (comi^arable to the unicellular Fungi and Algae of the present j^eriod), 

 or they are parts of some other plant. The author is distinctly in 

 favour of the facts speaking to one or other of the two latter views. 

 He forms, therefore, two genera, which he characterizes thus : Blasto- 

 phragmium, with the body formed of three difterent substances : — 



a. A fibrillar, multiramified, filamentar substance. 



5. Pellucid substance intermixed with granules • 0008 mm. in 

 diameter, and with pellucid fibrillse arranged in longitudinal rows. 



c. Semipellucid polarizing substance formed of centrogranular 

 granules, arranged radially, and forming regular spheres ; the system 

 of the tubules simple, the " tubules " arranged radially, closely com- 

 pressed, and all of the same length. 



The second genus, Asterophragmiutn, is composed of only two sub- 

 stances ; one is granular and non-pellucid, and the other semi- 

 pellucid, and possessed of polarizing properties. 



