Feb, 28, 1878] 



NA TURE 



345 



types. Of these cryptogams none are better known than 

 the ferns and the mosses, and as the reader of Hof- 

 meister's work, or, as we are but too glad to be able to 

 add, of most of the very recent handbooks of botany, well 

 know, both of these groups have this in common— that 

 they pass, as it were, through two existences, one of which 

 we may call the " fruit-bearing " stage (the sexual stage), 

 and the other the "spore-bearing" stage (the a-sexual 

 stage). The former of these two is the stage so apparent 

 to us all in flowering plants, where, as a product of the 

 fertilisation of the contents of the carpel by the pollen from 

 the stamens, we have the fruit. In the ferns, as a rule, 

 this first stage is one in which the plant, as it were, thinks 

 only of producing its male and female cells, and the 

 growth of the plant is lost in the care which it takes to 

 continue the species. Shake a spore from the frond of 

 some immense tree-fern, let it germinate, and the plant 

 which will grow thereout v/ill be a little green thing not 

 so big as the top of one's thumb ; but it will form its 

 " archegonium " and its " antheridium," and the contents 

 of the latter fertilising the contents of the former, the result 

 will be a plant which in time will equal the large tree- 

 fern in size, but which at this, its great vegetative 

 stage, will never produce aught but spores. In the 

 mosses this state of things is different. The moss-stems 

 which we gather as objects of beauty or use, these are the 

 fruit-producing stages ; these concern themselves with 

 growth as well as with what is usually antagonistic to 

 growth, reproduction ; and in the second stage, which in 

 the ferns is the only one popularly known, we have but a 

 short-lived, small-sized, spore-producing plant, sometimes 

 quite hid away in the lovely foliage of the moss plant, 

 sometimes starting up from it, and then known popularly 

 as its fruit, but really only its spore-producing stage. It 

 is only very recently that Dr. Karl Goebel {Boianische 

 Zeittmg, October, 1877) has called attention to the deve- 

 lopment of the prothallium (sexual stage) of a delicate 

 little fern called Gyinnogramtne leptophylla, which is to 

 be found in Jersey, along both shores of the Mediterra- 

 nean, and probably in all suitable localities in Africa, Asia, 

 Australia, and South America. It and a few other species 

 are annuals, so that at once we see that their a-sexual stage, 

 which is also their vegetative one, is quite limited. More- 

 over, their little stems are often not more than an inch in 

 height and the texture of the frond is almost pellucid. It 

 thus approaches the mosses in the feebleness of this 

 stage ; but the most interesting fact brought to light by 

 Dr. Goebel is that the sexual stage, generally in the ferns 

 so evanescent, is here absolutely somewhat long-lived, 

 and more, that it is even somewhat vegetative, some- 

 thing like that of Anthoceros Icevis. Such a form, which 

 makes a bridge to thus connect the two groups (ferns 

 and mosses), is of great importance, and Dr. Goebel's 

 memoir, which is illustrated, is not only of great value 

 from the accuracy of its details and from his deductions 

 therefrom, but also as showing how much can be done 

 even with apparently well-known forms. 



Prof. Grimm on the Fauna of the Caspian. — 

 We notice the appearance of the second part of Prof. 

 O. A. Grimm's (Russian) work on the Aralo-Caspian 

 Expedition. It is devoted exclusively to the Caspian and 

 to its fauna, and contains the description of worms, 

 sponges, and molluscs, discovered during the expedition, 

 together with a general sketch of the vertical and hori- 

 zontal distribution of Caspian molluscs. Prof. Grimm 

 divides them into three regions, out of which the lowest 

 one (deep sea) corresponds to older forms of fossils, whilst 

 the upper one has its nearest relatives in youngest forms 

 of fossils. In a concluding chapter Prof. Grimm discusses 

 the interesting question as to the influence of conditions 

 of life on morphological structure, and shows by many 

 illustrations the accommodation of forms to varied condi- 

 tions at different depths. The work is illustrated by many 

 drawings. 



Transformation of Cartilage into Bone. — The 

 last Bulletin of the Belgian Academy of Sciences (vol. 

 xliv. No. 11) contains a very valuable paper of Dr. 

 Leboucq, Superintendent of Anatomical Researches at the 

 University of Ghent, on the mode of formation of the 

 bone tissue in the long bones of mammalians, in which the 

 author discusses and resolves by his researches, based on 

 a new principle, the much-debated question whether the 

 embryonal cartilage is substituted by a new tissue, or is 

 directly transformed into a bone. The great difficulty of 

 rendering the minute cartilage cells apparent among 

 other cells, is resolved by the author by his employing 

 soda, and decalcifying the sections with acidulated 

 glycerine ; the cells thus preserve their shape, and re- 

 ceive a beautiful colour, as is seen from a chromolitho- 

 graphed plate accompanying the paper. By using this 

 method the author was enabled to prove that the minute 

 cartilage cells take an active part in the formation of 

 bones, quite performing the part of osteoblastes. The 

 researches were carried out in the Ghent Laboratory, 

 under the direction of Prof, van Bambacke, and the 

 paper is accompanied by a very favourable comment 

 thereon by Prof, van Beneden. 



Owls. — M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards has recently 

 read before the Academy of Sciences of Paris two 

 ornithological papers of interest. One on the affinities 

 of the Owl, Pholidus badius, demonstrates, from its 

 skeleton, that it belongs, quite contrary to the general 

 opinion of naturalists, to the Bubonidae, near to Syrnium 

 and Nyctale, and not to the Strigidas. In the species 

 the posterior margin of the sternum has two pairs of 

 well-developed notches, and the furcula is not complete 

 at its symphysial extremity. This being the case, the 

 genus Strix is now the only member of the family of 

 the Strigidee, and the pectination of the inner edge of the 

 nail of the third toe found in it is no longer to be taken 

 as of much importance in the group. In ■ the second 

 paper a new genus of Strigine Owls is described, from 

 Madagascar, and named Heliodilus. 



Alg^ of the White Sea. — At a recent meeting of the 

 St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, M. Chr. Gobi read 

 an interesting paper on the algae of the White Sea. The 

 number of species he has discovered reaches seventy, of 

 which ten are green algse, six Fucus, and twenty-nine red 

 algae. The algse of the White Sea are a mixture of repre- 

 sentatives of the Arctic and of the Atlantic basins, as well 

 as of fresh water and salt water forms, the mixed charac- 

 ters of the flora being especially obvious with respect to 

 the green algse. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



Lapland. — An important exploration of Russian 

 Lapland is being carried out by the Swedish lieutenant 

 Sandeberg. Hitherto only the coast of the region has 

 been known with anything like accuracy, the interior 

 features being set down solely from conjecture. Lieut. 

 Sandeberg commenced his work in 1876, and we learn 

 from the Geograpliische Blatter (Heft i, 1878) of the 

 Bremen Society, it will be continued till 1880. The 

 country will be carefully explored and accurate obser- 

 vations taken, which will enable Lapland to be at last 

 mapped satisfactorily. Lieut. Sandeberg is accom- 

 panied by several zoologists who are investigating mi- 

 nutely both the mainland, island, and sea fauna, and 

 have already made considerable additions to our know- 

 ledge in this direction. During the last two summsrs 

 Sandeberg has found seventy-eight new species of 

 birds in the Kola peninsula, of which one at least is 

 stated to be quite new to science. Large collections in 

 other departments have also been made. Previous to 

 Sandeberg, no educated European has explored Russian 

 Lapland, which is of such great importance to the zoolog ist, 



