eee gn a aad 
1903] CURRENT LITERATURE 475 
the Peronosporales.7 A/éugo Lepigondz is near the level of A. candida in the 
interesting series of species in this genus, or if anything, more highly 
specialized, chiefly on account of its extraordinarily large and well differ- 
entiated coenocentrum. Ruhland agrees with Berlese and Wager that 
Peronospora Alsinearum has a uninucleate egg and well differentiated 
coenocentrum ; and with Stevens that there is in Sc/erosfora graminicola a 
rather vague area of denser protoplasm in the center of the egg in place of 
a clearly defined coenocentrum, though otherwise it is very much like Perono- 
spora. Plasmopfara densa entirely lacks a coenocentrum and therein differs 
from Plasmopara alpina as recently described by Rosenberg. Ruhland 
observed a specimen of Plasmopara in which two mature oospores and a 
younger egg lay side by side, making three differentiated regions of ooplasm 
in the same oogonium. Such conditions might prove very interesting if one 
could follow the developmental history. 
Ruhland discusses a number of the topics which the reviewer has recently 
treated in his paper on Saprolegnia. He agrees that the uninucleate egg in 
the Peronosporales is at a higher level of sexual differentiation than the 
multinucleate ; criticises Trow’s comparison of the coenocentrum to a “ whirl- 
pool ina river;” holds that the nuclear divisions in the oogonium are not 
established as reduction divisions; and is not willing to accept Rosenberg’s 
recent comparison of these mitoses to the divisions in the spore mother-cell. 
sont Davis 
A DISCUSSION has arisen over the characters of the genus Monascus. 
Ikeno* calls in question the identity of the form whose ascocarp has 
been recently described by Barker.** Monascus has formerly always been 
included among the Hemiasci. Barker found in his type a curious but 
nevertheless well-established system of ascogenous hyphae developing from 
the fertilized ascogonium, which clearly removes this form from the Hemiasci — 
and so confident was Barker of its identity with other material ot the same 
purpureus. The ascogonium develops directly into a large cell, which 
becomes loosely invested by surrounding hyphae, and the spores arise by 
free cell formation within this— processes typical of the Hemiasci. Ikeno 
then holds to the old characters of Monascus and regards Barker's form as 
entirely distinct from this genus and a typical ascomycete. It is unfortunate 
that Ikeno does not present a full account of the period when the fertilization 
of the ascogonium should be expected and the stages of development imme- 
diately following this event. This is exactly the time when ascogenous 
2 See notice of preliminary paper, BoT. GAZ. 35:221. 1903. 
*3 IKENO, S., Ueber die Sporenbildung und camara Stellung von Monascus 
purpureus Went. Ber. Deutsch, Bot. Gesells. 21:259—269. 1903. 
4 Ann. Botany 17: 167. 1903. 
