480 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
sections. Accordingly, in his judgment, the “sterile lobe”’ is completely 
suppressed. It seems to follow either that the plant never had a sub- 
tending sporophyll or that the sporophyll is entirely abortive. The former 
alternative would support the view of the primitive character of the Ophio- 
glossaceae, apis ed by Campbell in comparing the “spike” of Ophio- 
lossum with the sporogonium of Anthoceros. Bower is inclined to accept 
the second alternative, and to see in O. stmf/ex an abortion of the sterile 
lamina, regarding the ate ssaceae as derivatives from a lycopod type. 
He finds a descending series in the related O. pendulum, O. intermedium, 
and O. simplex, in which thiols is a decrease of the sterile leaf, and the 
extreme condition of O. simplex he thinks “may be attributed to the pres 
ence of mycorhiza, which makes nutrition of the large spike still Sectoid 
in the dense, wet forest in which it grows, haere ecw. 3: that the usual 
assimilating organ is OE a non-existent.’’—J. M.C. 
HanniG* has studied the growth of embryos in nutrient solutions out- 
side of the embryo sac. The embryos used were those of Raphanus satt- 
vus, R. Landra, R. caudatus, and Cochlearia fogs and were isolated 
at various sizes in their development from the one-celled condition. 
The object was to determine their ability to pee various organic foods. 
In the cell-sap squeezed out of the plant and sterilized the embryos refused 
to grow. In nutrient salt solutions they also failed to live, despite the fact 
that all possess plenty of chlorophyll. In cultures of Io per cent. cane sugar 
in a nutrient salt solution embryos consisting of a single cell at the end of 
the ener soon die, but much older embryos grow well. These never 
assume -the curved position that they present in the embryo sac but always 
remain straight. ey soon lose their chlorophyll, but make and store in 
their leaves large amounts of starch, but are unable to form proteid. Young 
plants taken from this sugar solution and planted in sand and watered with a 
nutrient salt solution at once become green and grow and fruit normally, 
which brings out the interesting fact that the embryo is not hindered from its 
normal development by removal from the embryo-sac. In solutions of I per 
cent. sugar and varying amounts up to Io per cent, of peptone the embryos 
are unable to produce proteid and the protoplasm finally disappears, as does 
also the chlorophyll. With asparagin as a source of nitrogen only the older 
embryos of Cochlearia came to maturity; all the rest died, as they also did in 
leucin. With glycocoll, which is a favorable source of nitrogen for fungi, no 
growth was obtained, nor on tyrosin. In a decoction of Raphanus plants 
only a temporary growth was obtained. Several other nitrogen compounds 
were used, but in no case could any increase in the total amount of nitrogen 
in the embryos be obtained.—W. B. MACCALLUM. 
Hawnnic, E., Zur Physiologie pflanzlicher Embryonen. I. Ueber die Cultur 
yon Cruciferen-Embryonen ausserhalb des Embryosacks, Bot. Zeitung 62*:45-8o0. 
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