Igor] CURRENT LITERATURE 435 
has published a synopsis of the palms of Porto Rico, including 20 species, 
representing 14 genera and 4 families. The startling fact is that 7 of the 
genera and 13 of the species are new. /nodes, Thrincoma, and Thringis are 
new genera of Sabalaceae; Aeria and Acrista of Arecaceae; Curima and 
Cocops of Cocaceae. The plates are of unusual beauty.—E. P. BICKNELL 
(idem 570-592), in his ninth paper entitled “Studies in Sisyrinchium,” presents 
the species of Texas and the southwest, the number reaching 25, of which 17 
are new.—J. M 
NABOKICH in a preliminary communication to the German Botanical 
Society ** claims to have demonstrated that the growth of the higher plants 
may take place under conditions which prevent normal respiration, and that 
the reason why previous investigators have found no anaerobic growth is that 
their experiments were carried on under conditions which permitted the wilt- 
ing of the experimental material. His method consists in putting into a 
50—70° flask with tubulated neck, 40—50° of a 0.5 to 2 per cent. solution 
of glucose or cane sugar. Into this nutritive solution he puts etiolated seed- 
lings of maize, sunflower, onion, etc., or cuttings of vigorous stems and roots 
which have been kept previously in water for one to four hours. The parts 
are marked with fine lines to serve as data for growth. After putting these 
into the flask, the top of the neck is fused off, and after cooling the air is 
exhausted vza the side tube, which is previously drawn down at one point to 
athick capillary. After exhaustion to a minimum the flask is partly sunk in 
hot water. The nutritive solution boils violently and the escaping vapor 
aided the continued exhaustion with the air pump removes the last trace 
of oxyge Five to eight minutes suffice to remove the oxygen and the side 
tube is Ne fused off. The whole operation should be complete i in a half to 
three quarters of an hour. Seedlings of maize showed 7.5™" growth in 36 
hours, cuttings from the stem of maize 8.2™", and cuttings of stem of sun- 
Ower 5™" in 45 hours. In various seedlings curvatures developed which are 
Precisely similar to those which are formed in the air under similar stimuli. 
No formation of chlorophyll was observed. 
These results stand in sharp contradiction to those of most observers, 
whose source of error Nabokich undertakes to specify. In a later number of 
the same periodical Wieler replies to Nabokich’s strictures and maintains 
the accuracy of his own results. The question evidently needs further 
investigation.—C. R. 
Miss MARGARET C, FERGUSON * has published the results of her stud- 
ies in Pinus. A detailed account of spermatogenesis in five species is given, 
** Ber. deutcsh. bot. Gessell. 19: 222-236. 1901. 
* The development of the pollen tube and the division of the ee nucleus 
in certain species of pines. Ann. Bot. 15 : 193-223. pls. 12-14. 
Ol. 
~. nap “hs so ioe of the egg and fertilization in Pinus fates Lbid. 435-479. 
Is. 
