94 SUMMABY OF CUBRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



closely connected with the walls which separate the spores from one 

 another, and consists in fact of layers of the mother-cells of the spores. 

 This membrane is beautifully sculptured on the outside by pro- 

 jecting reticulate bands ; and the outer surface of the extine is also 

 similarly sculptured. The history of development of these spores and 

 of the sculpture is gone into in detail ; and the author shows that in 

 Corsinia also, and probably also in the other thick-walled spores, the 

 outermost layer is developed, as in Sphcerocarpus, from the membrane 

 of the mother-cell, and from its innermost layers, the special mother- 

 cell ; its formation beginning only after the formation of the true 

 extine, and before the peripheral layers disappear. 



Fungi. 



Alkaloids and other Substances extracted from Fungi.*— C. J. 

 Stewart considers that the chemistry of fungi is by no means in a 

 satisfactory state. Many of the existing statements are rendered 

 doubtful by a bad identification of the species. It is also difficult to 

 obtain a sufficient amount of raw material, and its perishable nature 

 interposes another obstacle. Beyond this, the research itself is 

 so difficult and expensive, and the question of profitable result is so 

 remote to ordinary minds, that few qualified chemists have even 

 ventured upon the task. He has accordingly endeavoured to collect 

 together such facts as were scattered in chemical literature, and to 

 explain them as untechnically as was possible with due regard to 

 exactness and truth. The paper is not capable of being usefully 

 abstracted, but it deals with the sugars found in fungi, oils and fats, 

 vegetable acids, resins, colouring matters, trimethylamine, betaine, 

 muscarine, and amanitine (Cg His NOg). This is identical with the 

 animal bases choline and neurine, and is another link between fungi 

 and the animal kingdom. The production of these bodies artificially, 

 which has been accomplished, is of great interest, as very few natural 

 alkaloids have yet been artificially made ; and the success leads us to 

 hope that we may some day produce such medicinal alkaloids as 

 quinine and morphia by chemical means at a cheaper rate. 



Development of Ascomycetes.| — E. Eidam describes a new genus 

 of fungi, Eremascus, which he regards as, with the exception of 

 Saccharomyces, the simplest type of the Ascomycetes, the entire 

 fructification being reduced to a single naked ascus. It occurs as a 

 white pellicle on the surface of extract of malt. On the much- 

 branched mycelium there appear, directly on the septa, and on both 

 sides, two precisely similar protuberances, which grow into hyphse, 

 and coil spirally round one another even in their youngest stages. 

 The spiral consists of several coils; the apices of the two hyphaa 

 touch one another, and the septum becomes absorbed and their 

 contents completely coalesce. The point of coalescence, which is at 

 first small, increases into a spherical body, which becomes at length 

 separated by septa from the rest of the spiral hyph«. The remainder 



* Grevillea, xii. (1883) pp. 44-9. 



t JB. Schles. Gesell. vaterl. Cult., 1883, pp. 175-7. 



