108 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



New Aquatic Moss.* — Prof. J. B. Schnetzler describes a Moss 

 attached to pieces of limestone found by fishermen in their nets when 

 fishing at a depth of 200 m. at a particular spot in the Lake of Geneva. 

 No fructification has yet been found on it, but the author considers 

 it as probably allied to Hypnum {Thamniwni) alopecurum, which it 

 resembles in its mode of branching and in the form of its cells. It 

 is multiplied by green shoots ; and the leaves contain abundance of 

 chlorophyll and starch. Assimilation and the formation of chlorophyll 

 therefore take place at a depth which marks the extreme limit of the 

 sun's rays. 



Hepaticse of Terra-del-Fuego.f— The Hepaticae brought from 

 Terra-del-Fuego, in 1882, by Dr. C. Spegazzini, have been examined 

 by Signer C. Massalongo, who finds and describes a very large number 

 of species new to science, about one-fourth of the whole collection. He 

 also establishes a new genus of JungermannieaB, Pigafettoa, with the 

 following characters : — Perichaetium few-leaved, or pseudo-lateral from 

 subfloral innovations ; cauline and perichaetial leaves subsimilar ; 

 colesula subovate, large-mouthed, 3-4 lobed above, lobes irregularly 

 inciso-dentate or subcristate ; calyptra pear-shaped, with 3-4 sterile 

 pistillidia near the base ; cauline leaves subtransversely subsuccubous, 

 bifid, areolation made up of pachydermal cells ; amphigastria smaller 

 than the leaves, bidentate. 



Classification of Sphagnacese.^ — Dr. EoU points out the very 

 great diversity displayed by different sphagnologists in the limitation 

 of species ; and insists on the remarkable variability within the limits 

 of the various alleged species of all the characters derived from 

 external characteristics : the size, form, and colour, the number, size, 

 and direction of the branches. The fruit, on the other hand, offers 

 no difference from which specific characters can be di-awn throughout 

 the genus, with the exception of the few exotic forms of the sections 

 Hemitlieca and Isocladus. There are, in fact, among the Sphagnacese 

 neither constant species nor typical forms. The characters that are 

 of practical convenience in the arrangement of the Sphagnaceae under 

 so-called species must not be regarded as natural or of any genealo- 

 gical value ; they indicate rather stages in the history of development 

 than distinct species. Dr. EoU illustrates the above conclusions by 

 the comparison, in their various features, of a very large number of 

 forms of Sphagnum, and supports Warnstoff's proposal for a congress 

 of bryologists to determine what variations of structure are of genetic 

 value. 



Eabenhorst's 'Cryptogamic Flora of Germany.' — The fourth 

 volume of this work treats of the Mosses ; and of this volume three 

 l)arts are now published, including a general introduction, and an 

 account of the Sphagnaceae, AndreaeaceEe, and Archidiacete. In the 



* Bot. Centralbl., xsiii. (1885) pp. 330-1. 



t Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital., xvii. (1885) pp. 201-77 (17 pis.). Cf. this Jourual 

 v. (1885) p. 10;^.0. 



t Flora, Ixviii. (18S5) pp. 569-80, 585-98. 



