1 902 ] CURRENT LITER A TURE 1 5 1 



\ 



Conidia normall}- four-celled, fusiform, slightly curved or falcate, copiously produced 

 K in a bad-like manner from the stroma and from short branches of the sporophores^ 



27 X 3 M to 38 X 3-5 M. Living in the humus of the soil, able to attack the flax plant, 

 producing the disease known as "flax wilt," and causing the soil condition described 

 as "flax-sick soil," 



This fungus attacks the young plants of flax and spreads somewhat slowly 

 to older plants, and has the power to maintain itself for sometime saprophyti- 

 cally. The preventive is to moisten the seed before sowing with a solution 

 of formaldehyde, care being taken to have the seed well cleaned, as no means 

 have been found to disinfect bits of straw and imperfect seed mixed with good 

 seed. 



The bulletin is a fine example of deductive and experimental research. 

 J. C. Arthur. 



The botanical institute of the* University of Brussels has begun to 

 publish a collection of its work, of which Vol. V, with papers dated 1900 to 

 1901, is first to appear/7 Vols I-IV, containing papers from 1882 to 1900, 

 are in preparation. The volume at hand has the following attractive contents: 

 G, Clautriau, Nature et signification des alcaloi'des v^g^taux, and La 

 digestion dans les urnes de Nepenthes; E. Vanderlinden, Recherches 

 microchimiques sur la presence des alcaloides et des glycosides dans la 

 famille des Renonculac6es, with 2 colored plates ; J. Massart, Le lancement 

 des trichocystes c\\^z Paramoeciicm A urelia, Sur le protoplasme des Schizo- 

 phytes with 6 colored plates, and Essai de classification des reflexes non 

 nerveux ; L. Eruera, Sur la myriotonie comme unite dans les mesures 

 osmotiques, and Sur une Bact^rie de grandes dimensions: Spirilluin Colossus; ^ 

 Fr. Van Rysselberghe, Influence de la temperature sur la permeability du 

 protoplasme vivant pour Teau et les substances dissoutes; J.Starke, De 

 la pr^tendue existence de solanine dans les graines de Tabac. 



In the system proposed by Errera for the measurement of osmotic and 

 gas pressures, the ''tonie'* is the pressure of i dyne on i ^'^'"'^ of surface; 

 loooo of these make the myriotone, which is approximately too ^f an almost 

 phere. In the equation pv-RT, if p is expressed in myriotones, R equals 

 ^•3^> The osmotic pressure of o.i mol. KNO3 is computed as ca. 443 myrio- 

 tones, considerably higher than the commonly accepted figure. Van Ryssel- 

 berghe finds that w^hile the temperature has great influence on the rapidity 

 of the movement, water and various other substances (glycerine, urea, 

 cafeine, methylene blue, and ammonium carbonate) can pass slowly through 

 the protoplasm at zero. He holds that the slightest pressure is adequate^ if 

 given time, to force water through protoplasm or any other permeable mem- 



'^Recueil de Plnstltut Botanique (University de Bruxelles) puhlie par L. Errera. 

 Tome V. Bruxelles. 1902. 



