
140 BOTANICAL GAZETTE | FEBRUARY 
This study of Pyronema has important bearings in various directions and 
these are discussed at length. Along the lines of Harper’s previous studies 
they serve to clinch more strongly his argument, supporting the views of De 
Bary, that the Ascomycetes have sexual organs. Indeed the opinions of Van 
Tieghem, Brefeld, and Dangeard seem to have passed below the horizon of 
the present day outlook, so conclusive is the evidence presented from work in 
various fields, among the lichens, the Laboulbeniales, the Perisporiales, and 
the Pezizales. 
Pyronema is of especial interest because it presents characters somewhat 
intermediate between the simple fusion of the antheridium and oogoniun in 
Sphaerotheca, and the complex apparatus with the trichogyne found in the 
lichens and Laboulbeniales. Still it is very remarkable that such diverse 
conditions should appear in a single group, and the question seems very 
fair whether or not the Ascomycetes are a phylogenetic unit. However, 
the trend of investigation indicates complexities in life histories as well as 
structures among the fungi far greater than were at first imagined, and it is 
quite possible that widely different results may have quickly arisen under the 
pressure of peculiar life conditions. 
The study of multinucleate gametes has opened an interesting line of 
investigation, and promises results that may materially modify our views of 
the evolution and differentiation of en cre ae among the Phycomycetes, 
and perhaps the Ascomycetes.— B. M. Davis. 
IN A RECENT PAPER Wager gives an interesting account of his observa- 
tions on Euglena viridis as they bear on the functions and relations of the 
eye spot and flagellum. After a brief résumé of the general morphology of 
the cell he takes up the vacuole system and gullet. He states definitely that, 
contrary to previous observations, the principal vacuole opens directly into 
the gullet, and therefore is an excretory reservoir. Just at this point Wager 
takes issue with the zoologists’ claim of holozoic nutrition. Using powdered 
carmine in the culture medium he failed to find a single grain entering the 
gullet. He also brings forward tentatively Kawkine’s explanation that the 
gullet is an absorptive region because paramylum grains are smallest in close 
proximity to it. Wager’s views on the structure of the eye spot antagonize 
some older ideas and support others. In brief, the eye spot is composed of 
granules, bright red in color, imbedded in plasmatic network. The granules 
are in a single layer and with no regular arrangement. On treatment with 
alcohol, a reaction similar to that of disintegrating chlorophyll grains is 
obtained; hence the eye spot coloration is a derivative from chlorophyll, 
The origin of the spot de novo is in doubt. The flagellum and its close 
physical connection with the eye spot takes up the next paragraph. Nothing 
is known of its mechanism, however. Its structure is simple; a single fila- 
ment with bifurcate base, bearing a swelling on one of the bifurcations. The 

