Bihlio(j raphical Notices, 105 



third subdivision deals with the Characeae, which are now univer- 

 sally admitted as a distinct structural type. The fourth subdivision 

 deals with the Algae, and is fuller in detail than any other part of 

 the book. The types included here are placed under eight classes — 

 Florideee, Confervoidese Heterogamje, Fucaceae, Phoeosporeae, Conju- 

 gatae, Confervoideae Isogamae, Multinucleatae, and Coeuobiese. In 

 the fifth subdivision the Fungi are primarily subdivided as Phyco- 

 mycetes and Sporocarpece, the Lichens being dealt with as parasitic 

 fungi which do not develop beyond the earliest stage of germination 

 without the aid of an algal host. Subdivision six deals briefly with 

 the Mycetozoa, distinguitshed from the Fungi by their saprophytic 

 nutrition and vegetative body constituting a plasmudium formed by 

 the coalescence of peculiar swarm-spores. The seventh subdivision 

 deals with the Protophyta, under which are included Diatoms, Pro- 

 tococcoideae, and the Cyanophyceae, the series ending with the Bac- 

 teria. Under each chapter is given a list of the principal recent 

 memoirs that relate to its subject, and this bibliographical part of 

 the work will be very uselul to beginners and isolated workers. 



The great puzzle for students in Cryptogamic Eotany is in the 

 nomenclature of the jiarts of the organism. It is most difficult to 

 carry out the principle that the same organ should always bear the 

 same name throughout the various orders, and that organs that are 

 not identical should receive different names. The plan adopted by 

 our authors is as follows : — They propose the restriction of the term 

 spore to any cell which is produced by the ordinary processes of 

 vegetation, not directly by a union of the sexual elements, which 

 becomes detached for purposes of direct vegetative propagation. 

 The simple term spore is used in the Pteridophyta and Muscineae ; 

 but in the Thallophytes it is generally qualified by a prefix, e. g. 

 zoospore, tetraspore. The cell in which spores are found is called 

 a sporange. In the heterosporous Pteridophyta the spores from 

 which the female prothallium arises are called megaspores and 

 those which give birth to the antherozoids microspores. The cases 

 which contain them are called megasporaugia and microsporangia. 

 Ihe cell containing the male organs of fertilization is called an 

 anthcridium and the fecundating bodies antherozoids. Spore being 

 abandoned for the female reproductive organs it is proposed to use 

 sperm as a root-term in its place, oosphere for the unfertilized pro- 

 toplasmic mass, and gone as a root-syllable for the various forms of 

 the entire female organ before fertilization. In a similar way they 

 differentiate between a sexual and non-sexual multiplication of 

 individuals, by calling the first process rej^roduction and the latter 

 propagation. If some such plan of limiting terminology could be 

 carried out it would effect a great gain in clearness and precision. 



A general elementary handbook of this kind was much wanted, 

 and it deserves and no doubt will obtain a wide circulation. The 

 Pteridophyta and Muscineae are now known as thoroughly as the 

 Phanerogamia ; but in all the other divisions there is a wide field 

 for further work in the study of life-histories. 



