230 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
It is probable that at fertilization there is a nuclear but not a chromatin 
fusion, and that the paternal and maternal chromatin retain their identity through- 
out the sporophytic phase, finally fusing, in so far as they fuse at all, during 
synapsis. If this be true, the two important phenomena of fertilization—stim- 
ulus to growth and intermingling of ancestral characters—are widely separated, 
the stimulus to growth occurring when the nuclei fuse, and the mingling of 
characters being delayed until synapsis—CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Nutrition of the gymnosperm egg.—Miss Stopes and Fuyu*® have been 
investigating the nutritive relations of the surrounding tissues to the egg in gym- 
nosperms. As is well known, about the “central cell,” and later about the egg, 
there is organized usually a very distinct jacket of nutritive cells, whose inner 
walls are conspicuously thickened and pitted. The authors find that the delicate 
walls of the endosperm cells are pitted in the same way; and that the large pits of 
the jacket cell-walls are closed by a membrane perforated only by plasmodes- 
men. This latter fact is the most interesting one of the paper, for it precludes 
the old notion of nuclear migration or of any transfer of solid material from 
the jacket cells to the egg. The jacket cells are regarded as glandular, secreting 
substances for the digestion of the starch and proteid granules stored in the endo- 
sperm. The statement is made in the summary that the jacket cells “are 
considered the phylogenetic homologues of the angiospermic antipodals,” @ 
statement evidently based upon their similar function —J. M. C. 
Ecological survey of Northern Michigan.—Under the direction of C. C- 
Apams there has been published"? the report of an ecological survey conducted 
by the University Museum of the University of Michigan in 1904. The regions 
selected were Porcupine Mountains in Ontonagon County, on the south 
of Lake Superior, and Isle Royale, an island near the Canadian shore. Especially 
significant i is the report by A. G. RuTHVEN on the relation of the plants 
animals of these regions to their environment. Lines of survey were run @ 
the region examined, in such a way as to include examples of all the repent 
habitats. These habitats were then examined in as much detail as per- 
mitted, and special attention was given to the relations of the nae to its 
environment. In this study attention was directed particularly to the forces 
and conditions composing the environment, in order that the dominant forces 
might be clearly recognized. The results are too numerous and detailed me 
mention, but the work is unique and extremely suggestive —J. M. C. 
Ecology of algae.—FritscH?° has made a statement of some of the problems 
8 Stopes, M. C. and Fuju, K., The nutritive relations of the ieee ear 
eih. t. Cen pl.t 
to the archegonia in gymnosperms. B Bo tralb. 20:1-24- sata 
t9 An ecological survey in Northern Michigan. Prepared under the ici 
of CHas. C. ApAms. Publ. in Rep. State Geol. Survey for 1905. pp- 133- #85: 27 17” 
2° Fritscu, F. E., Problems in aquatic biology, with special reference t0 
study of algal periodicity. New Phytol. 5:149-169. 1 
