1897 | BRIEFER ARTICLES 117 
isolated, and 4-6"" long from the mixed spores. The embryos from 
the mixed spores were slightly larger than the others, and had straighter, 
whiter roots. The roots of the others turned brown after a time and 
became crooked and shrunken. ‘The plants were transferred to moist 
soil in an earthenware saucer, but they did not receive much attention 
and did not long continue to develop. A few experiments were 
attempted with other sporocarps, but the material, which had been 
sent to America from Australia by the Baron von Miiller and bore no 
date, seemed either to be too old or to have dried too young, for most 
of the spores failed to germinate. 
Parthenogenesis, 2. ¢., the development of an unfertilized egg-cell 
into a plant, has long been known in Chara crinita, where it was early 
observed by De Bary.' Lately Klebs*? has given an account of the 
germination of the gametes of Ulothrix, Protosiphon, and Spirogyra 
under certain circumstances without conjugation. ‘The apogamous 
formation of the cystocarp described by Davis’ for Batrachospermum 
and Ptilota is another addition to the allied physiological facts. In 
none of the higher plants has parthenogenesis been known,‘ though 
the well known occurrence of apogamy in some of the ferns makes 
it not surprising to meet with parthenogenesis in this group. If, 
as the writer’s experiments seem to indicate, we really have in 
Marsilia another example of parthenogenesis, then this plant may 
afford the cytologist useful material for the study of nuclei in embryos 
ALTER R. SuHaw, Stanford Unt- 
versity. 
* GOEBEL, ei of class. and dost morphology of plants. Eng. Trans. 64. 
1875.—De Bary, Zur Keimungsgeschichte der Characeen. Bot. Zeit. 379. 1875.— 
ALEX. BRAUN, gave Parthenogenesis bei Pflanzen. Abhandl. der Akad d. Wiss. 
zu Berlin 337. 1856 
*K ess, Die Bedingungen der Fortpflanzung bei inigen Algen und Pilzen 210, 
239, 313. 1896.—_STRASBURGER, Ueber Befruchtung. Jahrb. f. wiss. Botanik 30: 408. 
1897. 
3Davis, The Fertilization of Batrachospermum. Ann. Bot. 10:49-76. 1896. 
Fagen of the procarp and cystocarp in the genus Ptilota. Bor. Gaz. 222 353- 
378. 1896 
aSiennsncindis, Schwarmsporen, Gameten, pflanzliche Spermatazoiden und das 
Wesen der Befruchtung. Hist. Beit. 4: 155. 1892.—STRASBURGR, NOLL, SCHENK, und 
SCHIMPER, Lehrbuch dex Botanik 58, 243, 291. 1894. _—Sreasnunons, Ueber Befruch- 
tung. Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot. 30: 422. 1897. 
