540 THE NATURAL HISTOET EETIEW. 



rapidly araalgamated with the contents of the latter, and complete 

 their impregnation. 



We have now given the substance of M. Sollmann's paper. "We 

 do not propose to go at length into the contents of Professor Jano- 

 witsch's paper, as it does not profess to throw any light upon the 

 process of fructification, and, indeed, concludes with the remark that 

 tlie act of impregnation in the Spheeriacei is as much a mystery as 

 ever. AVe must, however, notice those parts of it in which the 

 author's conclusions are directly at variance with those of M. Soil- 

 man n. This latter paper relates to Nectria maurafa, B. and Br. 

 Nectria LaimjiDe Not. andiV^. cinnaharina Tode. The author describes 

 the formation of the stroma, and the development of the pycnidia 

 (preferring that term to spermogonia) or conidium-bearing organs, 

 as also the mode of germination of the conidia of N. cinnabarina. He 

 observes that the young perithecia contain in their interior a mass 

 of transverse threads ( Fad en-si/ stem) growing from the inner wall, 

 and converging radially, and which at first sight have the appearance of 

 an irregular net-work. Those threads of this system which proceed 

 from the roof of the peritiiecium, are much more developed than 

 those from the base. The former grow until their ramifications 

 reach the bottom of the perithecium, but the latter never reach the 

 top. The asci are formed after the formation of the above threads. 

 The author could not make out tlie earliest stages of spore-formation, 

 but he says that as that which takes place in the asci, before and 

 after the formation of the spores, agrees with what De Bary obf^erved 

 in certain l^ezizce,^ there is no reason to doubt that the mode of 

 origin of the spores in Nectria is analogous to that in the Fezizce. 



The thread-system disappears with the development of the asci, 

 the remnants of it forming paraphyses. 



After describing the spores of the three species, and the mode 

 of germination in N. cinnaharina and iV. inauruta, M. Janowistsch 

 expresj^es a confident opinion that in Nectria inaurata and N. Lamyi, 

 the bodies which Sollmann calls spermatia are nothing but the pro- 

 ducts of germination. He says that SolJmann has confounded the 

 pycnidia oi N Lamyi with the young perithecia, whereas the two are 

 always quite distinct organs, and spermatia are never borne on the 

 parietal threads of the perithecia — that long before the ascus be- 



* In his treatise " ucber die Entwickclung der Ascomyccten", 



