1898 | CURRENT LITERATURE 367 
jecture he has confirmed more recently in the case of Marsilia” in which the 
behavior of the sperm-nucleus is as in Onoclea, and the cilia and cytoplasmic 
band are unmistakably thrown off in the cytoplasm of the egg. 
Another result of Mr. Shaw’s investigation is well worthy of note. Con- 
trary to what has been seen in many cases and assumed in others, there was 
no evidence that a membrane is immediately formed about the oosphere 
after the entrance of the spermatozoid. It is suggested that in Onoclea the 
exclusion of other spermatozoids is accomplished, not by a membrane but by 
plasmolysis of the oosphere. 
It is highly desirable that further observations should be made on the pro- 
cess of fertilization in zoidogamic plants.—WILSON R. SMITH. 
NEW SPECIES of the genus P/eodorina Shaw has been described ana 
figured by Kofoid in the AuZletin of the Illinois State Laboratory 5: 273. 
1898, and named Pleodorina Iilinoisensis.® The account of the structure and 
habits of the species is very full and interesting. . ///inotsensis is distin- 
guished chiefly from Shaw’s P. Ca/ifornica because the vegetative cells are 
always four in number at the anterior end of the ccenobium instead of 
constituting about one-half of the cell colony. The number of cells in the 
ceenobium is also smaller, usually 32 instead of 64 or 128, and the repro- 
ductive cells (gonidia) are two or three times the diameter of the vegetative 
cells instead of being only slightly larger or twice as large as in the Cali- 
fornian species 
Pleodorina Disavieesiees is found in the back waters that cover submerged 
lands along the Illinois river. Quantitatively it does not form an important 
part of the plankton, and is not as abundant as Eudorina. Dr. Kofoid 
realizes that in the incompleteness of our knowledge of the life history of 
Pleodorina we cannot be sure that it is not a form of Eudorina elegans. 
There is extensive variation in both species, and such similarity of form and 
measurements that the younger stages of the two are indistinguishable. The 
presence of four vegetative cells at one pole of the ccenobium is the character- 
istic mark of Pleodorina Iilinoisensis, the remaining 28 cells becoming repro- 
ductive. In Zudorina the antherozoids are formed in a similar grote of four 
polymorphic conditions we should expect those 28 cells to be reproductive 
(gonidia), and the group of four at the anterior pole might remain vegetative. 
uch a form, if it existed, would be identical with P/eodorina 1llinoisensis.— 
_ BRADLEY Moore Davis. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT series of exsiccati for American mycological 
Students so far issued has come to a close with the thirty-sixth volume of 
sed oe d. deuts. bot. Gesells. 16: 177-184. 1898. 
he form of the specific name is barbarous !—Eps. 
