37° BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
of its constituents probably facilitates the absorption of gases and metabolism 
generally, to an extent hitherto unnoticed. On the réle of the latex the author 
promises further publication, 
Because the mucilage tubes of the Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and 
Commelynaceae are analogous to the latex tubes, Molisch has investigated 
them. He finds extraordinary nuclei in some of them—filaments I5004 
long by 0.1-0.3 in diameter ; also proteid crystalloids, starch, glucose, and 
tannins, as in latex tubes, besides a new body, luteofilin, which occurs as 
sphere crystals in the mucilage of many monocots.—C. R 
A manual of bacteriology. 
IN 1897, Frederick D. Chester published in the Annual Report of the Dela- 
ware Agriculture Experiment Station a preliminary arrangement of the spe- 
cies of the genus Bacterium. This work, rearranged and enlarged to include 
all the groups of bacteria, has now appeared in a valuable Manual of deter- 
minative bacteriology.2 While not so voluminous as Migula’s great work on 
systematic bacteriology, this book is by far the most complete classification in 
English, conprising descriptions of some 780 forms. The system of classifi- 
cation adopted, by means of which related forms may be readily traced out 
or new species identified, is the same as that first proposed by Migula in 
Engler and Prantl’s Natirlichen Pflanzenfamilien (1896), with some minor 
modifications. In the synopsis of Bacterium and Bacillus, coloration by Gram’s 
method is used as an important differential test. This might be open to 
criticism, for variation of the Gram staining reaction within a so-called group 
is well known. It was brought out in a recent study of B. pyocyaneus by 
Roger C. Perkins as follows: “In reactions of the various organisms to 
Gram’s stain, my results did not coincide with those of Jordan and Ruzicka, 
who note complete decolorization in every case. Of ten varieties studied in 
this present series, seven decolorized uniformly and regularly when treated 
by this method, but three retained the color at every trial.” 3 On the other 
hand, Chester has given a subordinate place to formation of gas in the dif- 
ferent sugar bouillons, a comparatively constant reaction. 
In the section devoted to the terminology of descriptive bacteriology, the 
author has arranged and illustrated an excellent series of simple terms, 
capable of expressing definitely in one word the meaning of several sentences 
of the old style verbose and figurative cultural description. These terms are 
interesting additions to the bacteriological vocabulary. The criticism of 
species nomenclature is a point well taken, alt though no adequate suggestion 
is made as to how names of forms so closely related as the various kinds of 
* CHESTER, FREDERICK D., A manual of determinative bacteriology. 8v0, pP- 
vi-+ 401, figs. 73. New York: "The Macmillan Co. - $2.60. 
3 Jour. Med. Research 281. 1901. 
