1995] CURRENT LITERATURE 319 
traumatic disturbance due to resistance offered by gelatin surface to entering root; 
(2) positive aerotropism because of the stratum of air between the gelatin blocks; 
(3) diffusion of stimulating subst from one block to the other. In the author’s 
improved method, only one large circular block of gelatin is used. After a cavity 
is made in the center of the block, the seedlings are planted in the gelatin at vary- 
ing distances from the margin of the cavity, and into the latter the stimulating 
substance is then placed. By using this method negative responses were obtained 
in cases corresponding to which positive responses were obtained with the method 
of NewcomBe and Ruoprs. The former responses are regarded as chemo- 
tropic, while the latter are considered traumatropic.—RayMonpD H. Ponp. 
_ THE Greatest Gap in our knowledge of the morphology of Coniferales is 
in connection with the Araucarineae. THOMSON,’* whose interesting work on 
the megaspore-membrane of gymnosperms has been noted, has published a 
preliminary statement of the results of his investigation of the tribe. The con- 
spicuous features are the supernumerary nuclei found in the pollen tube, in one 
case reaching thirty in number; the failure of the pollen grains to reach the micro- 
Pyle, lodging at the distal end of the scale and sending out their tubes from that 
point; the unusual freedom of the nucellus from the integument; and the peculiar 
arrangement and development of the archegonia, not described in this notice. 
The anatomical details also indicate a peculiar isolation of the tribe among 
oe The forthcoming monograph will be looked for with great interest. 
Scott has discovered the sporangia of Stauropteris Oldhamia, a common 
a * the English Coal-measures, which has been regarded as a much branched 
naked rachis of a fern leaf. The ultimate branchlets are exceedingly numer- 
ous and slender, “occurring in dense, faggot-like groups.” ScoTT now finds that 
pr branchlets bore terminal sporangia of the ordinary fern type, except that 
ma ‘6 : 2 asa stomium and no annulus. There is a suspicion that these 
Se eporanais of a pteridosperm, especially since the ovules of that 
hak = = found attached, are also terminal upon ultimate branchlets. 
as oS ie would be that such a position of sporangia attained among 
accounts for its occurrence among pteridosperms.—J. M. C. 
ae Ust of some unrecorded stations for New Zealand plants, COCKAYNE” 
Patago tee Darwinii urolepis, a plant hitherto recorded as occurring only in 
and nia, thus adding another form common to the floras of South America 
New Zealand.—J. M.C 
oe ee 
18 
1905 THomson, Science N. S. 22:88. 
R.B., Preliminary note on the Araucarineae. 
Scorr 
eis: » D. H., The sporangia of Stauropteris Oldhamia Binney. New Phytol. 
4-120, figs. ae Igos. 
20 e 
Pere CKAYNE, L., Some hitherto-unrecorded plant habitats. Trans. N. Z. Inst. 
301 367. 1905. 
