1909] CURRENT LITERATURE 487 



discussion and will doubtless require further and most careful work. Stoklasa 

 is particularly emphatic, declaring that "we have determined — not only I, but 

 my collaborators, at different times — by definite researches, which we are ready 

 to repeat in any forum, that preparations of chlorophyll all actually contain 

 phosphorus." And again: "Our new investigations, carried out in my labora- 

 tory both on crude and pure chlorophyll, prove that the phosphorus is bound up 

 in the chlorophyll complex and does not occur in ionic form. We have recog- 

 nized with complete certainty glycerophosphoric acid and cholin. Consequently 

 the assertion of Euler and of Schulze, that the chlorolecithin hypothesis is 

 finally refuted by Willstatter's work, is at least premature." — C. R. B. 



The " germination " of Gnetum. — Hill, in studying Gnetum Gnenion^ 

 finds that the root and hypocotyledonary axis soon escape from the seed coats, 

 leaving behind, in close connection with the reserve food, a foot or sucker. The 

 cotyledons are at first small, but later enlarge somewhat and do photosynthetic 

 work. An older specimen shows the pronounced rodlike foot in the center of 

 the endosperm. The foot contains vascular tissue. 



Hill remarks that the foot develops to a greater extent in Gnetum than in 

 either Tumboa or Ephedra. Comparison with the last genus is certainly astonish- 

 ing. The reviewer can speak for many of the ephedras of the western world. 

 They do not have a structure in the remotest degree resembling the foot of Gnetum 

 as figured by Hill, nor is there even a rudimentary trace of such a structure. — 



W. J. G. Land. 



Sex of Sphaerocarpus. — Acting upon a suggestion by Strasburger, Douin 4 ° 

 has carefully examined 81 groups of Sphaerocarpus terrestris, taken by chance 

 from material collected at Chavannes. He finds that about 75 per cent, clearly 

 show 2 male plants and 2 female arising from the spore tetrad, whose members 

 cohere usually until germination. The others were mainly explicable by non- 

 germination of one or more spores of a single or double tetrad, or the accidental 

 dissociation of the members of a tetrad. Several cases clearly anomalous were 

 found: one group (from 2 tetrads) of 54 and 3$; another of 3^ and 1$; and two 

 others, iS and 3?. He corrects certain earlier misstatements regarding sporelings, 

 and now specifies differences between juveniles of S. tcrrcstris and S. calijornicus, 

 which before he declared indistinguishable. — C. R. B. 



Necrosis of the grape.— Vines killed by this disease** 1 have usually, in the 

 opinion of the owners, "just died," yet the writer regards it as a serious disease 

 causing a larixe percentage of damage. In one young vineyard of 14 acres it is 



39 Hill, T. G., The germination of Gnetum Gnemon L. Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 

 34:1, 2. 1908. 



40 Douin, Ch., Nouvelles observation der Sphaerocarpus. Rev. Bryol. 36:37-41. 



1909 



41 Reddick, D., Necrosis of the grape vine. Cornell Univ. Agric. Exp. Sta. Bull. 

 263. Feb. 1909. 



