264 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



II. AcuTiFOLiA. — Corona persistent. 



A. Indivisa. Sterile leaves undivided. 2 sp. : — T. prolifera 



Leonh. ; T. fimhriata Allen. 



B. Divisa. Sterile leaves divided, usually into four terminal 



leaflets. 5 sp. : — T. calif ornica A. Br. ; T. stipitata Allen ; 

 T. intrieata Leonh. ; T. intertexta Allen ; T. apiculata A. Br. 



Fungi. 



Rabenhorst's Cryptogamic Flora of Germany (Fungi).* — The 

 publication of this important work has now advanced as far as the 

 issue of the first division of the first volume, which is to comprise 

 the Fungi, under the editorship of Dr. G. Winter. The present divi- 

 sion includes the Schizomycetes, Saccharomycetes, and Basidio- 

 mycetes, all the species being described which are natives of Germany, 

 Austria, and Switzerland. 



Hysterophymes.t — H. Karsten applies this term to elementary 

 organs which have been mistaken for independent living animal or 

 vegetable organisms. In the present paper he explains the process 

 by which he has developed them synthetically by constructing artificial 

 cells of potato digested in a nutrient fluid of about 5 per cent, solu- 

 tion of sodium-ammonium phosphate with some potassium sulphate. 

 In such cells albumen-cells may be seen to develope, and to multiply in 

 a linear direction into the well-known bacterium, bacillus, and vibrio 

 forms. The contents of these bacterioid organisms are coloured blue 

 by iodine in a certain stage of development. On the addition of a 

 solution of cane-sugar, the bacterium-cells formed within the closed 

 potato-cells can be seen to increase and develope into the torula-form. 



Cells of the kohl-rabi digested in the same nutrient fluid developed 

 in the same way micrococci and bacteria ; and, since they were taken 

 from the bast-tissue, where there are no intercellular spaces, Karsten 

 regarded any entrance of germs from without as impossible. The 

 author considers the experiments to prove that the so-called ferment- 

 cells arise from normally developed cell-sap vesicles, and that torula- 

 cells are only a stage of development of bacterium-cells or micrococci. 



Graphiola.J — This exotic genus of Fungi is chiefly known from 

 G. Phoenicis parasitic on Phoenix dactylifera and its varieties, as 

 P. canariensis, also on Chamcerops humilis, and has been variously re- 

 ferred to the Myxomycetes, Uredinete, and Pyrenomycetes. E. Fischer 

 has undertaken a detailed examination of it, as well as of three other 

 species, G. congesta, parasitic on Chamcerops palmetto, and G. disticha 

 and compressa, the hosts of which are not known with certainty, and 

 may belong to quite another genus. 



The fructification of G. Phoenicis consists of small black elevations 

 on both sides of the leaf of the date-palm, of a diameter about 1 • 5 mm. 



* Eabenhorst, L., ' Kryptogamen-Flora von Deutschland, Oesterreich u. d. 

 Schweiz. 1*^'' Band, Pilze, von G. Winter, l*e Abtheilung.' Leipzig, 1884. 

 t Flora, Ixvi. (1883) pp. 491-8. 

 X Bot. Ztg., xli. (1883) pp. 745-56, 761-73, 777-88, 793-801 (1 pL). 



