Decembee 14, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



763 



era adopted in the index, with synonyms and 

 sectional divisions. This follows in the main 

 the treatment in Die naturlichen Pfianzen- 

 familien, departing from it where recent 

 monographic work seems to render it neces- 

 sary, and changing generic names where pri- 

 ority requires. In this connection, it will be 

 a rude shock to some of our conservative fern 

 students to see the names Dryopteris, Denn- 

 stcedtia, Phanerophlehia, Phyllitis, Pteridium, 

 Matteuccia, Cyclophorus and Ceropteris ac- 

 cepted in place of names long cherished, but 

 progress is inevitable and these names will 

 stand because they are right. 



To those people who still name ferns as new 

 which are 'not described in Synopsis Fili- 

 cum/ to whom it makes no difference whether 

 the type locality of the name given to a West 

 Indian fern is New Zealand, Mauritius or 

 Jamaica, or to whom the mere priority of 

 publication is of no concern, Mr. Christensen's 

 book will be only a thorn in the flesh. To 

 those whose ambition is to place fern delimita- 

 tion and our knowledge of fern distribution 

 on a stable and scientific foundation for accu- 

 rate study, his work will be worth its weight 

 in gold as a time saver, and a datum line for 

 departure into new fields. Conceived in the 

 same spirit as Index Kewensis for flowering 

 plants, Mr. Christensen's work will far out- 

 rank it in accuracy, completeness and rational 

 point of view. 



The novice might well ask: Are the ferns 

 all described in these 5,940 accepted species? 

 Unhesitatingly we would say, No! Not all 

 these names will stand, for there has been 

 much avoidable and some unavoidable rede- 

 scription in the absence of such an index as 

 we now have before us. On the other hand, 

 countries supposed to have been exhaustively 

 studied are yielding frequent novelties, A 

 single capital illustration is fresh from the 

 antipodes. The island of Java has been classic 

 ground for fern study since the time of Blume 

 (1828). Eaciborski has recently (1898) given 

 us a fresh manual of the ferns of the vicinity 

 of Buitenzorg. This last work includes only 

 a single terrestrial Ophioglossum. An Amer- 

 ican morphologist visits Buitenzorg specially 

 in quest of material bearing on this primitive 



type and what does he find? No less than 

 four well-marked terrestrial species of Ophio- 

 glossum snatched from under the eyes of the 

 slower European botanists who have exploited 

 rather than exhausted the fern flora of the 

 old world. 



LuciEN M. Underwood. 

 Columbia University, 

 November 10, 1906. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 



The Botanical Gazette for November con- 

 tains the following papers : ' The Ovule and 

 Female Gametophyte of Dioon,' by C. J. 

 Chamberlain. This genus is endemic in Mex- 

 ico and it is probable that plants often reach 

 the age of more than 1,000 years. The struc- 

 tures studied were the ovulate strobilus, the 

 megasporophyll, the integument, the vascular 

 system of the ovule, the megaspore membrane, 

 the archegonium and the egg, the general con- 

 clusions being reached that Dioon resembles 

 Cycas more than does any other living genus. 

 ' Temperature and Toxic Action,' by Charles 

 Brooks, the purpose of the experiments re- 

 corded being to determine what might be the 

 modifying effect of temperature on the toxic 

 properties of certain chemicals as shown by 

 the effect of these substances on germination 

 and growth in certain fungi. ' The Embry- 

 ogeny of some Cuban Nymphseaceae,' by Mel. 

 T. Cook, giving an account of the development 

 of the embryo sac, the endosperm and the 

 embryo. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



THE SOCIETY FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AND 

 MEDICINE. 



The eighteenth meeting of the Society for 

 Experimental Biology and Medicine was held 

 at the Cornell Medical School, in New York 

 City, on Wednesday evening, October 17. The 

 president, Simon Flexner, was in the chair. 



Members present. — Atkinson, Auer, Beebe, 

 Buxton, Crile,^ Dunham, Elser, Emerson, 

 Ewing, Field, Flexner, Flournoy, Foster, Gib- 

 son, Gies, Hatcher, Lee, Levene, Levin, Loeb 

 (L.),' Lusk, Mandel (A. E.), Meltzer, Meyer, 



^Non-resident. 



