1904 } CURRENT LITERATURE Ta 
tropa) with ectotropic mycorhiza and no root hairs, all food-stuffs being sup- 
plied by the fungus; (7) plants with ectotropic and endotropic mycorhiza. 
Tubeuf discounts some of MGller’s work by showing that Pius sylvestris has 
luxuriant ectotropic mycorhiza in moors; P. cembra has similar root fungi in 
alpine humus, 
Cytological mycorhiza studies have been made by SuHrBaTA® and 
HILTNER.3* Shibata has confirmed the general results of W. MaGnus,® and 
has gone into greater detail along similar lines. The infested cells of 
Podocarpus show enlarged and amoeboid nuclei, which divide amitotically ; 
upon the death or resorption of the fungus ordinary mitosis occurs again, 
though without normal spindles and nuclear plates, the nucleus, too, soon 
disorganizing. Shibata agrees with Frank and Magnus that the fungus is 
digested by the host, in a manner analogous to the digestion of insects by 
carnivorous plants. He regards amitosis as another type of cell activity, not 
necessarily pathological. Hiltner’s results agree with the above. He thinks 
that only certain portions of the fungus —Janse’s sporangioles — are digested 
by the host. He regards nitrogen enrichment as proven in the case of 
Nomad 33 combats the well-known view of Stahl that there is a struggle 
for food salts in the soil between root hairs and fungi, in which the latter are 
‘most successful, Stahl supported his contention by showing that autotrophic 
plants grow better in sterilized soil than in soil permeated by fungi. Neger 
claims that this is due to the greater abundance of foodstuffs in sterilized soil. 
Lepidium sativum and Triticum vulgare were grown in (a) non-sterilized 
forest mold, in (4) similar but sterilized soil, and in (¢) a mixture of a and b. 
The plants grown in a were far less luxuriant than in @ or in ¢, though the 
roots were equally developed in all cultures. The equal development of 
cultures 4 and ¢ shows that the presence of fungi scarcely restricts the activity 
of root hairs, as Stahl supposed.— H. C. COWLES. 
3° SHIBATA, K., rice Studien iiber die endotrophen Mykorhizen. Jahrb. 
Wiss. Bot. 37: 643-684. 
3* HILTNER, A., oie zur Mycorhizafrage. Naturw. Zeits. Land- und Forst- 
wirthschaft 1: 1903 (Bot. Centralbl. 92: 250). 
# See Bot. GAZ. 32:377- 1901. 
33 NEGER, F. W., Ein Beitrag zur Mycorhizafrage: Der Kampf um die Nahrsalze. 
Naturw. Zeits. Land- und Forstwirthschaft 1 : 372 ff. 1903 (Bot. Centralbl. 93 : 542 2). 
