ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC, 925 



2. Corsiniece (Corsinia, Boscliia). 



3. Marchantiece. (a, Astroporse ; h, Opereulatae ; c, Targionieae ; 

 d, Compositse). 



Just as the Corsiniece may be regarded as a stage towards the 

 development of the Composite, so a form similar to Monoclea is pro- 

 bably the starting-point for the thallose Jungermanniete. 



The difficult question of the comparison of the growth of the 

 embryo in the Hepaticse and in the Bryinece is discussed at length. 



Fungi, 



Nomenclature of Discomycetes.* — G, Winter points out the great 

 difficulty of recognizing the larger Ascomycetes, especially the Disco- 

 mycetes, from published descriptions ; partly from these being often 

 descriptions of individual specimens rather than of species or even 

 varieties ; partly from their often being taken from immature speci- 

 mens, in which the form of the spores and other adult characters have 

 not yet appeared. Dr. Winter proposes that Cooke's ' Mycographia,' 

 though not without faults, should be taken as the uniform authority 

 for the nomenclature of the larger Discomycetes, and gives some 

 examples in which he thinks the ordinary nomenclature requires 

 rectification. 



Vegetative Budding of Pistillaria pusilla-f — On a decaying 

 vine-leaf K. Mika obtained a quantity of this fungus, in which abun- 

 dance of fresh mycelium was being formed, not from the spores, but 

 directly from the fructification, a phenomenon which the author 

 considers comparable to the vegetative budding observed by de Bary 

 and Farlow in ferns, by Stahl and Pringsheim in mosses^ and by 

 Brefeld in several fungi. In specimens in which the basidia were 

 already nearly fully developed, all the cells of the fructification, and 

 especially the basidia, budded very freely in the course of a day, pro- 

 ducing new mycelia, which differed in no respect from those produced 

 in the ordinary way by the germination of spores. The same occurred 

 in cultures into which young specimens of the fungus were introduced. 

 In all those cultures in which the budding took place, the result was 

 the development of filaments on which new fructifications were 

 formed, which arrived at full maturity, but without manifesting any 

 trace of sexual organs. 



Structure and Germination of Sorosporium.J — E. Pirotta has 

 followed the life-history of Sorosporium (?) primulicola, parasitic on 

 the capsule of Primula officinalis, of which he gives a full description. 

 If the distinction between the two genera TJrocystis and Sorosporium 

 is made to depend on the mode of development of the spores, this 

 fungus must be placed in the latter genus. In JJrocystis the central 

 spores originate on the sporiferous branches of the mycelium which 

 curve in a spiral manner ; the peripheral spores from the mycelial 

 filaments which at a later period surround the spiral. In Sorosporium 



*■ Hedwigia, xx. (1881) pp. 65-72. 



t Magyar Nov, Lapok, iv. (1880) No. 48. 



J Nuov. Giorn, Bot. Ital., xiii, (1881) pp. 235-40 (1 pi.). 



