﻿Proceedings of the Club. 



Wednesday Evening, November 24, 1897. 



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President Brown presided, and 1 1 persons were present. 



The first paper of the evening was by Mr. Marshall A. Howe, 

 "The Genus AntJioceros m North America/' and was illustrated by- 

 drawings and specimens. The paper which will soon appear in 

 print, described three new species and reviewed the species before 

 recognized of which latter two only occur in the Gray's Manual 

 region, A. laevis and A. punctatus. Mr. Howe also indicated the 

 intermediate position of AntJioceros between the Hepaticae and 

 Musci, and discussed its increased sporophyte-development, look- 

 ing upward toward the Pteridophyta. The life-history of AntJio- 

 ceros was illustrated by figures, beginning with the roughened yel- 

 low or blackish spore. 



By C. F. Austin, the cognate genus Notothylas was united 

 with AntJioceros ; but it lacks stomata and differs in its capsule 

 form, direction and position. Austin's herbarium was sold in Eng- 

 land, and now belongs in part to the bryologist Pearson, and in part 

 to the Owens College, Manchester. 



Discussion by President Brown and others followed. Dr. Un- 

 derwood remarked that he had known NototJiylas spores, unlike 

 those of AntJioceros, to germinate without resting-period. AntJio- 

 ceros Jaevis he finds among the hemlocks at the Botanical Garden, 

 and elsewhere in moist, flat, sandy and grassy land, fruiting August 

 to November. In California, said Mr. Howe, they occur on banks 

 and in springy places, beginning to fruit in February and shrivel- 

 ling in May. One of the species of the Californian coast formerly 

 confused with the A. caespiticius of De Notaris, is found by Mr. 

 Howe to develop curious globose storage-bodies, serving as food 

 reservoirs to carry the plant over the dry seoson. 



The second communication was by Dr. T. F. Allen, entitled 

 "Contributions to the Japanese Characeae," composed in fact of 

 four papers, soon to be printed, descriptive mainly of certain Japa- 

 nese Nitella-ioxms displaying interesting correspondences with our 



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