1900] CURRENT LITERATURE 363 
suspensor, is vertical, and the second transverse. In the ripe seed the 
embryo fills the entire sac, but no organs are differentiated. The free nuclei 
of the embryo-sac never divide, but the perisperm performs the function of 
endosperm. The writer regards Peperomia as a transition form between 
angiosperms and lower seed plants or perhaps higher pteridophytes. It is a 
very old type, and apparently should be placed at the beginning of the 
angiosperms.— CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
RECENT STUDIES on the conidia of the Entomophthorales by Cavara™ 
have shown two types in the structure and development of these organs. 
The conidia of Emfusa musce are multinucleate, for the conidiophores are 
characteristically coenocytes, and the constriction of the conidium from the 
tip always includes a mass of dense protoplasm with a number of nuclei. 
The nuclei are said to fragment in the conidia, dividing by constriction in the 
middle. On germination the conidium puts forth a tube, and the multinu- 
cleate protoplasm streams forward into it. The conidia of Entomophthora 
Delpiniana are uninucleate, perhaps for the reason that the conidiophores 
show a distinct tendency to pass from the condition of a ccenocyte to that of 
a segmented branched filament. The greater portion of the contents of the 
terminal cells, with a single nucleus, passes into a bud-like process which 
becomes cut off below by constriction to develop the conidium.—B. M. DAVIS. 
, 
IN a recent number of Scéence,"} Professor C. S. Slichter of the University 
of Wisconsin proposes to use the kinetoscope for the reproduction and mag- 
nification of slow motions such as the growth, development, and movements 
of plants, flow of plastic substances, etc. His suggestion seems so likely to 
prove fruitful that we reproduce part of his note. 
The method that I selected... . was as follows: Let the moving body be 
photographed upon kinetoscope film at stated intervals — every few minutes, or every 
0,000 fold, but of 
I made the first 
ngs. Several peas and beans were placed in a glass root cage containing wet sand. 
The Photographs were taken by artificial light at fixed intervals day and night for 
about three weeks. When the film is run through the kinetoscope the entire growth 
for the period of three weeks is reproduced in a few seconds...-++ The kinetoscope also 
shows very clearly the different speeds at which the various parts of the plant grow, 
siorn, Bot. 
1 *CAVARA: Osservazioni citologiche sulle Entomophthoree. Nuovo Giorn 
tal. 6: 411. 1899. 
Science 13; 535. 6 Ap. 1900, 
