444 SUMMARY OF CUBRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



by Pasteur's method, at high elevations in the Alps and Pyrenees, were still 

 more successful, fructifications being in some instances developed on the 

 lichen-thallus thus obtained by synthesis of an alga and a fungus. 



Schwendener's Lichen-theory.* — M. C. Flagey gives a resume of the 

 literature for and against this theory ; he sums up strongly against it, and 

 in favour of Minx and Miiller's hypothesis of microgonidia. Lichens he 

 regards as autonomous and perfectly distinct organisms, allied with Algse 

 through Collema, and with the ascosporous Fungi through the Verrucariese, 

 but always distinguishable from them by the chlorophyll contained in 

 their hyphfe. Lichenin he considers to be an amylaceous substance pecu- 

 liar to lichens, replacing the fungin of true fungi. M. Flagey lays stress 

 on the unsatisfactory nature of the synthetical experiments of Bornet, Stahl, 

 and others, inasmuch as they reconstructed lichens out of fungal hyphfe and 

 the gonidia of lichens, rather than out of what they state to be their con- 

 stituent elements, fungi and true alga3. 



Hymenolichenes.l — M. 0. J. Eichard combats the view of Johow | 

 with regard to the compound nature of the genera Cora and Dichonema. 

 He believes his statements to bave been founded on imperfect observation 

 of sterile specimens only, and confirms that of Nylander of the occurrence 

 of apothecia on the thallus of Cora. 



Fungi. 



Formation and Liberation of Zoospores in Saprolegnie8e.§ — Dr. 

 M. M. Hartog comes to the conclusion that the clear bands of the first 

 stage of the zoosporange are neither cell-plates nor nuclear plates, but 

 thinner parts of the protoplasm due to the aggregation of the greater part 

 around distinct centres ; at the homogeneous stage the protoplasm acquires 

 an extreme porviousness to liquid, due probably to the temporary loss of 

 the resistant layers as continuous layers ; this stage is accompanied by a 

 loss of turgidity, and in many cases by a marked contraction of the 

 sporange. The clear spaces seen in the final separation are merely the 

 watery liquid of the sporange, and do not represent expulsive matter ; there 

 is no evidence of the existence of the expulsive matter in the spore of any 

 aquatic fungus, where the jihysical conditions are altogether different from 

 those of the aerial ascus of the higher fungi. Aclilya has been found to be 

 diplauetic or to have the two tractella seen in Saprolegnia and Leptomitus. 

 The escape of the zoospores is due to the chemical stimulus of the oxygen 

 acting on the automotile zoospores. The author's observations were chiefly 

 made on plants grown on mealworms in tumblers, and floated out on large 

 glass slides for examination. 



Aspergillus.! — Herr O. Johan-CUsen describes all the species of 

 Aspergillus hitherto found in Norway, with several fresh observations on 

 their structure. He regards the various forms of sterigma as furnishing 

 no satisfactory specific characters, A. niger, albus, and flavus having both 

 forms. A. fumigatus, flavescens, and suhfuscus develope involution-forms 

 within the bodies of animals, the swollen spores putting out numerous 

 spiny or club-shaped, swollen or branched protuberances united into tufts, 



* Key. Mycol., viii. (1886) pp. 5-14, 6.5-80, 129-36. 



+ Lo Naturalistc, 1886, pp. 1-6. See Rev. Mycol., viii. (1886) pp. 108-9. 

 + See this Journal, 1884, p. 790. 

 § Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxvii. (1887) pp. 427-38. 



11 Christiania Vidensk.-Sclsk. Forbandl., 1886, p. 25. See Bot. Ceutralbl, xxix. 

 (1887) p. 292. 



I 



