1898 } CURRENT LITERATURE 65 
chlorophyll, and entirely subterranean, ranging in size from 2 to 20™ in 
length, and from 1.5 to 15™™ in breadth. Growth is carried on by means of 
an apical meristem of probably a single cell situated on the upper anterior 
side. All the prothallia found were infected with an intracellular endophytic 
fungus which occupies the lower portion of the gametophyte body, with 
the exception of two or three outer layers of cells. This fungus Mr. Jeffrey 
regards as intermediate between a Completoria and a Pythium, since it agrees 
with the former in its mode of penetration into the host and its possession of 
large vesicles, and with the latter in the formation of its conidia and the 
structure of the filamentous part. 
The reproductive organs are confined to a median ridge on the upper 
surface of the prothallium. The antheridia, in mode of origin and develop- 
ment, agree pretty closely with those of other eusporangiate pteridophytes, 
but the antheridial wall becomes two-layered. The spermatozoids are of the 
usual filicineous type, large and multiciliate. In the developing spermatozoids 
no structure was observed comparable to the blepharoplast of Zamia describe 
by Webber, or the “ Nebenkern” seen by Belajeff in Filicinez and Equise- 
tinee, The archegonium also originates in a superficial cell, It does not 
differ strikingly from other fern archegonia, but conforms more closely 
to those of the higher Leptosporangiate than to those of Marattia and 
Ophioglossum, having a protruding neck, small evanescent ventral canal cell, 
and non-septate binucleate neck canal cell. 
Still more interesting is the growth of the embryo. The first or basal 
wall is transverse, as in all eusporangiate pteridophytes, and median and 
Octant walls follow. But then regularity ceases, and owing to the late 
appearance of the embryonic organs it was impossible to assign them to defi- 
nite quadrants of the segmented oospore. The half-grown embryo presents 
some resemblance to that of Isoetes, since the lower half forms the foot, and 
the upper half gives rise-to stem, cotyledon, and root. Unlike Isoetes, how- 
ever, but like Equisetum, it has the stem apex differentiated before the first 
appearance of the cotyledon. The older embryonic organs, except the foot, 
Stow from well-defined apical cells. The gametophyte is remarkably per- 
“stent, having been found in one instance attached toa sporophyte eight 
years old, 
‘ Mr. Jeffrey's paper deals also with the stem anatomy of the young sporo- 
phyte, 
: € very divergent lines, Marattiaceze, Leptosporangiate, Isoetacee, Equise- 
nnem, and Lycopodiacese.—WiLson R. SMITH. 
