134 NATURAL SCIENCE. Feb., 



he describes a new genus, Saccoblastion, which he considers a closely 

 allied form. It was found, in moist weather, a thin tangle of hyphae, 

 on decaying wood and bark. The parent cell of the basidium in this 

 fungus forms a large, drooping, pear-like outgrowth, whence the name 

 Saccoblastion. Moller considers this outgrowth to be the equivalent 

 of the two-celled brown spores in the Uredineae. In the one case 

 there is a mere thin- walled protrusion from the vegetative cell, in the 

 other there is a spore which separates from the parent plant and 

 reproduces it. The homology is, to say the least, very startling and 

 far-fetched. 



Two curious genera have been added to the Tremellineae, viz., 

 Protomevulius and Protohydnwn. The first-named bears a striking 

 resemblance to Merulius, the well-known " dry-rot " ; Protohydnum 

 grows exactly like a Hydnuin, the under-side being studded with tooth- 

 like projections nearly a quarter of an inch in length. Both these 

 fungi have, however, the characteristic, longitudinally-divided basidium 

 of the Tremellineae, and only in outward form simulate plants of the 

 more advanced type of the Autobasidiomycetes. 



Dr. Moller has added six new genera and twenty-eight new 

 species to the Protobasidiomycetes ; and in the forms which he has 

 found he has happily been able to trace a gradual development in the 

 formation of the hymenium, from plants with scattered isolated basidia 

 to those in which the basidia grow in a definite fruiting layer. The 

 thanks of all students of fungi are due to him for this most interesting 

 account of his labours. A. L. S. 



Mosses 'and Ferns. 



The Structure and Development of the Mosses and Ferns. By Prof. Douglas 

 H. Campbell. Pp. viii., 544. London: Macmillan & Co., 1895. Price 14s. 



Professor Campbell is well-known as the author of a number of 

 important papers which are concerned, for the most part, with plants 

 and problems connected with the Archegoniatae ; thus a work from his 

 pen dealing with the cryptogamic department of this great series of 

 plants at once arrests attention and arouses interest. And it is not 

 too much to say, at the outset, that it forms probably the most 

 important treatise of its kind since the publication of the magnificent 

 and fundamental researches of Hofmeister some forty years ago. 



The too often neglected group of Muscineae, and especially the 

 section of the Hepaticae, meet here with far more adequate recognition 

 than has, unfortunately, become customary. Representatives of the 

 various orders of Liverworts have been investigated by the author ; 

 but it must not be imagined that a general and comparative treatment 

 has been lost sight of because some forms are selected as special 

 types. We notice with satisfaction that to Targionia is given a due 

 prominence among the Marchantiaceae. Its comparative simplicity 

 well fits it to serve as a key to the extremely complex structure 

 exhibited by the more familiar genera. 



The somewhat detailed treatment of the Anthoceroteae is a good 

 feature of this part of the book. The group has acquired a position 

 of considerable importance, inasmuch as it not improbably indicates 

 the sort of phylogenetic path along which the ancestors of the 

 vascular cryptogams have travelled. 



With the chapter on the mosses proper we confess we are not 

 quite so well pleased. Our old friend Funaria is exhaustively studied, 

 but we should have liked to see interesting forms like Bnxbaumia, 

 Diphyscium, Splachnum, or Fissidens receive far more attention than 

 they have actually met with. In this, as in other parts of the book, 



