“etme ww 
Botany and Zoology. 443 
are creditably executed from original drawings by Mr. Lapham him- 
: g 8 
__ self, and they will afford invaluable assistance to the student of this 
ult but very important natural order of plants,—most important 
and the domesticated animals. A, G. 
5. H. G. Reichenbach: De Pollinis Orchidearum Genesi ac Structura, 
et de Orchideis in artem ac Systema redigendis. Leipsic, 1852, pp. 38, 
4to. tab. 2.—We ought earlier to have noticed this elaborate essay of 
ieps, a genus of Ascomycetous Fungi established by Tulasne, who 
has cleared up the great confusion which prevailed respecting the na- 
ture and history of these vegetables, or vegetable productions. The 
ergot is not a metamorphosed seed resulting from diseased conditions, 
hor a mere diseased form of the seed associated witha parasitic fungus, 
as thought by E. Quekett, Leveillé, Phoebus, Mougeout, and Fée, but a 
real fungoid structure. The first sign of the attack of the fungus upon 
he flower of a grass is the appearance of the sphacelium upon the out- 
side of the nascent pistil ; it soon penetrates the wall of the ovary, grow- 
ing with it until it forms a fungoid mass of the same shape as an ovary, 
obliterating the cavity of the latter. At this time it is soft, while, 
Stooved on the surface, and excavated by irregular cavities, which are 
Connected with the external folds or grooves: the surfaces of these are 
all covered with parallel linear cells, like a hymenium; and from the ex- 
tremities of these arise elongated, ellipsoid, or oval cells, about 1.5000" 
in length. These become detached, and when placed in water germi- 
hate and emit filaments. These bodies are spermatia, stylospores, = 
éomidé 
d 
| | e spur det ie 
Tulasne.—( Micrographic Dictionary, by Griffith and Henfrey, — 6.) 
6. Trigonocarpon.—Mr. Jos. D. Hook : 
ture and chibieotatants that the fossil fruit of the coal era called Trigo- 
