346 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



are without septa, and are so delicate that they are diffluent in 

 water with only slight pressure. I have not seen any paraphyses. 

 Phacidum tetrasporum, Ph. & Keith. Epiphytous, erumpent, 

 circular or oblong, convex, cinereous, seated on a brownish yellow 

 spot, splitting irregularly into three or four lacinise ; disc black on 

 the surface, brownish yellow within; asci broadly clavate ; 

 sporidia 4, elliptical-ovate, with a septum near the lower end, 

 often with a papilla, brown ; paraphyses numerous, septate, with 

 brown pear-shaped heads. On the upper side of juniper leaves 

 while yet green, simulating a Puccinia. Forres, Rev. James Keith. 

 1 mm. across. Sporidia -025--021 x -017 mm. 



A Reformed System of Terminology of the Reproductive Organs of the 



ThaUophyta. By Alfred W. Bennett, B.Sc, F.L.S., and 

 George Murray, F.L.S.* 



After giving illustrations of the present chaotic state of 

 cryptogamic terminology, the authors proceed to state that the 

 object they have kept in view is to arrive at a system which shall 

 be symmetrical and in accordance with the state of knowledge, and 

 which shall at the same time interfere as little as possible with 

 existing terms. A few new terms are introduced, but the total 



number is greatly reduced. 



In the fourth edition of his 'Lehrbuch,' Sachs defines a 

 " spore" as a "reproductive cell produced directly or indirectly by 

 an act of fertilisation," reserving the term "gonidium" for those 

 reproductive cells which are produced without any previous act of 

 impregnation. The practical objections to this limitation of terms 

 are pointed out, and it is proposed to restore the term spore to 

 what has been in the main hitherto its ordinary signification, viz., 

 any cell produced by ordinary processes of vegetation and not by a union 

 of sexual elements, which becomes detached for the purpose of direct 



vegetative reproduction. The spore may be the result of ordinary 

 cell-division or of free cell formation. In certain cases (zoospores) 

 ts first stage is that of a naked mass of protoplasm ; in rare 

 instances it is multicellular, breaking up into a number of cells 

 (poly spores, composed of menspores, or breaking up into sporidia). 

 Throughout Thallophytes the term is used in the form of one of 

 numerous compounds expressive of the special character of the 

 organ in the class in question. Thus, in the Protophyta and 

 Mucorini we have chlamydospores ; in the Myxomycetes, sporangia- 

 spores; in the Peronosporese, conidiospores ; in the SaprolegniesB, 

 Oophycese, and some Zygophycese, zoospores; in the Uredinese, 

 teleutospores, cecidiospores, uredosporrs, and sporidia ; in the Basidio- 

 mycetes, basidiospores ; in the Ascomycetes (including Lichenes), 

 conidiospores , stylospores, ascospores, polyspores, and merispores ; in 

 the Hydrodictyeae, megaspores; in the Desmidicse, auxospores; m 

 the Volvocine® and Mesocarpete, parthenospot v.s :; in the Siphone® 



and Botrydieae, Jtupnospores ; in the (Edogoniaceae, androspores; * n 



* Head, Aug. 3*6 th, at the Meeting of the British Association at Swansea 



