26 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Jan 



The antheridium contains at first about twenty-five nuclei 

 which divide twice mitotically. The sexual nuclei differ 

 in form ; the sperm being- elong-ated and the egg" spherical. 

 The antheridial tube penetrates slowly, by reaching- the 

 ooplasm at the time of zonation, later entering- the oosphere 

 and appearing- as a conspicuously multinucleate structure. 

 When it opens there are discharg-ed about one hundred 

 male nuclei which fuse with the female nuclei in pairs. 



Holdfasts of Certain Florideae. — Miss. C. M. Derick 

 (Bot. Gazette 28 : 246) discusses in an interesting- way the 

 development of the holdfasts of certain Florideae. She 

 concludes that while the development of the different 

 species and g-enera may show relationship, the chief inter- 

 est lies in a biolog-ical reason for their appearance. A com- 

 parative study of the development of the spores and hold- 

 fasts shows that the variations are dependent upon the dif- 

 ferences in lig-ht, temperature or the density of the sur- 

 rounding- medium and an adaptation of veg-etative repro- 

 duction. 



Vibrioids in the Plant Cell. — Lag-erheim (Svenska Vet. 

 Akad. Forh. 1899 : No. 6), discusses the question of vi- 

 brioids in Ascoidea rubescens. Swing-le discovered small 

 cylindrical sharply differentiated bodies about the size of 

 many bacilli in the cytoplasm of some Saproleg-niaceae and 

 Florideae. Vibrioids may be observed in the living- cells. 

 They show a slow undulating motion. Larg-erheim states 

 that these org-ans are best observed in the older hyphae 

 which are free from fat. In young-er cells the fat and oil 

 makes them indistinct. The number of vibrioids varies 

 greatly. In older cells there are but few. In the Ascoidea 

 the vibrioids are so much like bacilli that one thinks of 

 them as living- bacteria occurring- in the cell. According to 

 Lagerheim the best of the many staining fluids are tri- 

 phenylmethane stains, especially fuchsine. Gentain violet 

 victoria blue and dahlia are most servicable. Ziehl's car- 

 bolic fuchsin is a most valuable stain, with this stain the 

 vibrioids are colored deeply in a few minutes. 



Indiana Plant Rusts. — Dr. J. C. Arthur has recently 



