684 SUMMABY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



series, viz. : — (1) Ehodophycese, plasma red; (2) Phseophycese, plasma 

 brown ; (3) Chlorophycege, plasma chloropliyll-green ; (4) Cyano- 

 pbyceae, plasma blueish green. Commencing with the Ehodo- 

 phyceas, the first order treated of is the Floridefe, which are divided 

 into twenty families and eighty-five genera. The descrijition of 

 these is very nearly completed in the five parts already published, 

 commencing with the Porphyraceas and concluding with the Coralli- 

 nacete. These parts are illustrated with five photographic plates and 

 numerous zincographs. 



Cryptogamia Vascularia. 



Cryptogramme and Pellsea.* — K. Prantl distinguishes Crypto- 

 gramme from the nearly allied genus Pteris by its anadromous 

 venation ; Pellcea from its allied genus Adiantum, by its meta- 

 dromous venation. He somewhat enlarges the bounds of these two 

 genera, making their characteristics depend not exclusively on the 

 form of the sori and the mode of development of the fertile margin of 

 the leaf. 



Fungi. 



Abstriction and Separation of the Spores of Fungi.t — A. Zalew- 

 ski has investigated the manner in which the spores are detached 

 in those classes of fungi which produce their spores not inclosed in a 

 sporangium: — ectospores, acrospores, basidiospores, or couidia. He 

 enumerates the various modes under the four following types : — (1) A 

 single spore is j)roduced at the apex of a basidium, or several simul- 

 taneously : — as in Haplotrichnm, Botrytis cinerea, Arthrobofrys, Gonato- 

 hotrys, the Peronosporese, and Basidiomycetes. (2) The spores are 

 successively abstricted in a row from the apex of a basidium : — as in 

 Oidium lactis, O. anguineum, the conidia of the Erysiphete, Cystopus, 

 Penicillium glaucum, Spicaria Solani, Aspergillus, and the ^ecidiospores 

 of many Uredineas. (3) The spores are formed by a torula-like 

 budding from the basidium, and from the older spores, which are 

 mostly united into branched chains : — CladoKporium lierharum, Peni- 

 cillium viride, P. cladosporioides, Torula, Polydesnms, Dematium pullu- 

 lans. (4) The sjwrcs are formed by simultaneous transverse division 

 of rod-shaped mother-cells, themselves springing simultaneously from 

 basidia : — Piptocephalis, Syncephalis. 



In the formation of acrospores a gelatinous middle lamella may 

 be formed, or not, in the primary division-wall which separates the 

 spores. In the first case the primary septum is divided by this middle 

 lamella into two plates which belong to the adjoining hyphal members, 

 i. e. to two spores, or to the spore and the sterigma which bears it, as 

 in Oidium lactis, Cystopus, Peronospora, Haplutrichum, &g. The chains 

 of ajcidiospores show a great difference in this respect, the gelatinous 

 middle lamella not being separated in them in the primary septum, 

 but being formed out of the entire pedicel or intermediate cell. In 

 the second case the primary septum which separates the spore from 



* Engler's Bot. Jahrb., iii. (1883). 



t Flora, Ixvi. (1883) pp. 228-34, 249-58, 259-71. 



