406 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
synonymous with Polyangium vitellinum Lk., an organism which 
has at various times been looked upon as a gasteromycete, a 
myxomycete, and even as ‘insect eggs.’ He also describes as 
Myxococcus macrosporus n. sp.a form having spores 3» in diameter, 
and producing orange or flesh-colored pustules in a laboratory 
culture of moist bark. The figures which he gives in this con- 
nection are so evidently diagrammatic, however, that it is difficult 
to determine whether he was really dealing with a species of 
this genus. The appearances shown in figs. 2 and 3, and especially 
- in fig. 5 of his paper, are certainly not such as have ever been 
observed by the present writer. 
A second addition to the order has been made by Miss A. L. 
Smith (Jour. of Bot. Feb. 1903), who has described as Myxococcus 
pyriformis n. sp. a short-stalked form found on rabbit dung from 
Wales; bright pinkish orange, about 2504 high, and with spores 
2%1.5m@. Whether the pear-shaped cysts of this species are 
deliquescent or not is not stated. The cultures of dirty white 
motile rods obtained by transfers may certainly be assumed to 
have been impurities; since they do not appear to have had the 
characters which so clearly distinguish the vegetative conditions 
of the members of this group from that of other bacteria. 
The third and last contribution that has appeared within the 
past six years was presented by Dr. E. Zederbauer at the May 
(1903) meeting of the Vienna Academy, and published in the 
proceedings (112:447). In this paper, a considerable portion of 
which is devoted to an interpretative criticism of the two contri- 
butions which have been published in the Gazerre, the author 
holds that the Myxobacteriaceae, as an independent order of 
organisms, has no real existence; and that the conditions sup- 
posed to have been observed merely represent a symbiotic associa- 
tion between ordinary Eubacteria and hyphomycetous molds. 
Since they are thus ‘no order of bacteria,” this author, at the 
suggestion of Professor von Wettstein, proposes to designate them 
as ‘*Spaltpilzflechten?’ 
This treatment of the group, though novel, seems somewhat 
hasty; especially in view of the fact that the figures and descrip- 
tions given in this paper show very clearly that its author is as 
