﻿CURRENT LITERATURE 



form of their material as were formerly their confreres of the Paleozoic, who 

 needed nearly a hundred years to recognize that many of the arboreal forms of 

 the carboniferous forests were not seed plants but vascular cryptogams, a view 

 long urged by the anatomists and finally admitted on every hand. The flora 

 of the Middle Eocene of Georgia is chiefly interesting because of the fact that 

 it clearly marks, in the opinion of the author, a warmer climate for that epoch 

 than for the early Eocene.— E. C. Jeffrey. 



Phylogenetic taxonomy of angiosperms. — Professor Bessey for many 

 years was interested in a phylogenetic scheme of classification, especially with 

 reference to the angiosperms. In a series of papers he has developed his point 

 of view, and his final paper was presented in connection with the twenty-fifth 

 anniversary celebration of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 1 * An interesting 

 feature of the paper is the definite formulation of the principles of classifi- 

 cation as applied to flowering plants. These principles are given in the form 

 of 28 "dicta," 7 of them of general application, and the remainder having 

 special reference to flowering plants. These dicta announce the primitive and 

 derived condition in reference to numerous structures, some of them generally 

 accepted, and some of them under discussion. The author then applies these 

 numerous dicta to the taxonomic complexities of angiosperms. He substi- 

 tutes "Oppositifoliae" and "Alternifoliae" for the old names dicotyledons 

 and monocotyledons, on the theory that dicotyledons are primitively opposite- 

 leaved, as shown by their cotyledons; and by the same sign monocotyledons 

 are essentially alternate-leaved. With this start, and in this way, the whole 

 sequence of angiosperms is presented in 300 families, beginning with Alisma- 

 taceae and ending with Lactucaceae (the Compositae being presented as 14 

 families) . It is a very laborious assembling of material on the basis of assumed 

 phylogenetic sequences, quite comparable with Engler's Syllabus, and useful 

 in the same way —J. M. C. 



Amoeboid movements of chromatophores.— The large epidermal leuco- 

 plasts of mature leaves of Orchis latijolius and O. incarnatus, according to 

 Kuster, 16 display amoeboid changes of form, having the power to put out 

 and take in processes resembling pseudopodia. Also these leucoplasts at times 

 break up into a large and small portion, which in turn may again fuse. Kuster 

 does not accept the idea of Senn that there is a peristromium surrounding the 

 chromatophore, holding rather that the pseudopodia belong to the chromato- 

 phore itself. Sometimes the chromatophore as a whole moves in the direction 

 taken by a pseudopodium, thus exhibiting active movement. More commonly, 

 however, a leucoplast suffers no change in position, following a pseudopodial 



,s Bessey, Charles E-, The phylogenetic taxonomy of flowering plants. Annals 

 Mo. Bot. Gard. 2:109-164.^. 1. 1915. 



16 Kuster, Ernst, tjber amoboide Formveranderungen 

 hoherer Pflanzen. Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesells. 29:362-369. fii 



