486 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



The ordinary form of E. moschatum corresponds to the original 

 autogamous form of E. eicutarium, while E. macrodenum appears to be 

 a form of E. moschatum corresponding to the var. ])impinellifoliam of 

 eicutarium, in which autogamy is absidntely prevented ; the ordinary 

 E. moschatum is autogamous and homogamous, or slightly protero- 

 gynous. E. grninum has only one form, with handsome nectariferous 

 flowers, protorogynous and xenogamous. 



Lime in Plant Life.* — Stohmann has shown the necessity of 

 lime for the development of plants ; but its function has not been 

 fully made out. Bohni has shown that lime is necessary, in the 

 earliest stages of plant life, for tlie consumption of the non-nitrogenous 

 reserve-material ; he also concluded that lime was as necessary to the 

 building-up of plaut-structurc as to the change of cartilage into bone. 

 From the rapid absorption of lime by sprouting bulbs, and the simul- 

 taneous appearance of calcium oxalate, Kellermann supposed that lime 

 might act on the solution of the starch by the formation of a ferment. 



The experiments on bean plants, detailed in a paper by E. v. 

 Eaumer and C. Kellermann, were conducted by Eaumer. Some of 

 the plants were grown in acid-washed quartz-sand, ami fed with 

 different solutions, both free from and containing calcium salt ; the 

 plants produced were examined macroscopically only. The results 

 agree essentially with those of Bohm and others, and sliow sijecially 

 that the function of the lime is closely connected with the consumjj- 

 tion of carbohydrate ; further, the amount of lime present in the seed 

 is not suiEcient for the use of the non-nitrogenous reserve-material. 

 "Whether the lime acts in the dissolving and transport of the reserve 

 starch, or in the decomposition of the starch to form cellulose, is a 

 difficult question to answer, but the weight of evidence is in favour 

 of the latter view. 



B. CRYPTO GAMIA. 



Classification of Thallophytes.t — In Professor Cohn's latest 

 system of classification of Thallophytes, he first divides them into 

 two natural series, Carposporeae and Gamosporeae, which diverge from 

 the same point of departure, touching one another in their lowest 

 members. 



I. Carpospore^. — Eeproduction by spores, which in the typical 

 families are foriiied in differentiated fructifications, produced either 

 non-sexually as shoots from the thallus, or sexually as the develop- 

 ment of a fertilized reproductive cell (carpogonium). No ciliated 

 zoogonidia. Thallus, as a rule, formed from a weft of rows of cells 

 (filaments or hyphse). 



1. ScJiizosporecB. Cells free, or united into rows or colonies ; no 

 fructification ; reproduction by cells (germinal cells) or rows of cells 

 (germinating filaments), which are isolated by fission, or by resting 

 cells (spores), a. Schizophytese. Cell- contents coloured by phyco- 



* Landw. Versuchs-Stat., xxv. (1880) pp. 25-38. See Journ. Chem. Soc, 

 Abstr. xxxviii. (1880) p. 568. 



t JB. scliles. Gcs. vaterl. Cultur, 1879, pp. 279-89. See Bjt. Ccntralbl, ii. 

 (Ib81)p. ;}21. 



