* 



l8 9 x l Current Literature. 



29 



moisture and various internal agencies, and other similar subjects pos- 

 sess all the elements required for a good thesis. There are excellent 

 grounds for the belief that vegetable physiology will soon claim as 

 much attention from American universities as minute anatomy did a 

 short time since. At any rate, here is a field to be kept in mind in 

 deciding upon themes for independent investigation. 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 

 A General Treatise upon Fungi, 



The fungi have presented many obstacles to a satisfactory treatment 

 within the compass of a single volume, among which are the verv large 

 number of diversified forms ranging through a long and intricate series,, 

 the obscure polymorphic nature of many of the species, the much re- 

 duced structure and curtailed life cycle due to dependence upon organic 

 food supply, and imperfect knowledge of physiological and biological 

 phenomena. Of the several divisions of the subject, systematic, mor- 

 phological, biological and physiological, we have had more or less 

 well written general accounts of each, decreasing in number and im- 

 portance in the order named, except of the last. For a knowledge of 

 the physiology of fungi the student has been obliged to hunt up the 

 scattered papers in journals and society proceedings, and incidental 

 references in works upon other subjects. A treatise, therefore, which 

 gives a satisfactory survey of the whole subject of fungi, with the 

 several parts duly apportioned, can not but meet with hearty welcome. 

 Such a work is Zopf s recently published volume on the fungi in their 

 morphological, physiological biological and systematical relations. 1 

 The author is well known by his able works upon the lower forms of 

 life and by his numerous important researches. 



Of the 500 pages in the volume 115 are devoted to morphology*, no 

 to physiology, 56 to biology and 204 to classification and development. 

 Upon opening to the first page one finds that the author proposes to 

 include in the work only the true fungi (Eumycetes). and to exclude 

 the bacteria (Schizomycetes) upon morphological grounds as well as of 

 expediency. No mention is made of the slime-molds (Mvxomycetes) 

 except in a footnote where they are said to be animals and not plants. 

 The author has given much attention to these outlying groups of 

 organisms and published several monographs upon them, and their 



1 Zopf, Wilhei.m . — Die Pilze in morphologischer, physiologischer, biologischer 

 und systematischer Beziehung pp. xii, 500. figs. 163. Roy. 8 vo. Breslau. 

 Ed. Trewendt: 1890. — M. 18. 



