824 SUMMABY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



The development of the separate antheridia agrees with that of 

 Fontinalis ; they have a 2-edged apical cell, which produces two rows 

 of segments. The youngest stage shows two inner cells surrounded 

 by a number of parietal cells. The further arrangement of the 

 cells in subsequent divisions probably differs in different genera. 



It follows from what has been said, that in Polytrichum, the 

 antheridia do not, as is generally stated, stand in the axils of the 

 leaves, and that their arrangement differs from what has been pre- 

 viously observed. While in Fontinalis and other genera of mosses, 

 the antheridia differ in their place of origin, the first springing from 

 the apical cell, the next in place of the leaves, the subsequent ones 

 having no definite point of origin, in Polytrichum all the antheridia 

 have the same origin, viz. beneath the leaves from outer cells of 

 the tissue of the stem which belong to the same segment as the 

 leaf. This fact furnishes another illustration of the general law 

 that the place of origin of an organ does not determine its morpho- 

 logical value. 



Fungi. 



Epiplasm of Ascomycetes— Glycogen of Plants.* — The following 

 are the principal conclusions of Dr. L. Errera on this subject, the 

 method adopted for extracting glycogen from fungi and other plants 

 being that of Briicke, j slightly modified in some cases. 



1. Glycogen or " animal starch " exists not only amongst the 

 animals in which Claude Bernard discovered it, and in the Protista 

 (where it was first pointed out by Kiihne), but is also found in 

 plants. 



2. Many of the ascomycetous fungi contain it in their tissues 

 and in their asci. Pilobolus, and, almost certainly, the yeast of beer, 

 equally contain it. The identity of the glycogen of Peziza vesiculosa 

 (which the author has studied most in detail) with the glycogen 

 of the liver of Mammalia is complete. 



3. The epiplasm of the asci of Ascomycetes, suspected by Tulasne 

 and described, by de Bary, is formed of a spongy mass, probably albu- 

 minous, completely permeated with glycogen. 



4. Even outside the fungi, all the plants studied (Lemanea, 

 Linum, Mahonia, Solanum) contain substances at least analogous to 

 glycogen, non-nitrogenous, giving more or less opalescent aqueous 

 solutions which turn more or less brown with iodine, having no 

 reducing action whatever on the cupro-alkaline reagents, but becoming 

 transformed into reducing bodies by boiling with dilute sulphuric 

 acid. 



5. There also exist reducing substances analogous to the dextrines 

 in the aqueous extracts of several plants (Tuber, Agaricus, Solanum) ; 

 in others they have not been found (Peziza, Lemanea). 



6. When it is not in too small a quantity the glycogen may be 



* Errera, L., ' L'Epiplasme des Ascomycetes et le Glycogene des Vegetaux.' 

 81 pp. (8vo, Bruxelles, 1882). 



t SB. K.K. Akad. Wiss. (Wien), lxiii. (1881) p. 214; and Vorles. iiber 

 Physiol., i. (1881) p. 324. 



