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BOTANICAL GAZETTE 



ceils. The lack of demarcation between neck and venter, always notable in 

 Jungermanniales, is here most pronounced. This character, taken in connec- 

 tion with the large number of neck canal cells, seems to suggest that the arche- 

 gonium is primitive; that while other structures have made rapid strides 

 forward, the archegonium has stood still, relatively speaking. The earliest 

 stages of the embryo were not seen, but in the youngest stage a prominent 

 haustorium, derived most probably from the hypobasal half of the fertilized 

 egg, was present. The foot is not sharply delimited from the seta; this is, 

 of course, a primitive character. The wall of the capsule is 3-layered and 

 the apex is thickened into a pronounced beak, an advanced condition phylo- 

 genetically. Campbell considers that Treubia is nearer the acrogynous 

 liverworts than is any other anacrogynous form. — W. J. G. Land. 



Botanical microtechnique— Smith 28 gives a resume of botanical micro- 

 technique from the time of Hooke to the present time, and treats the subject 

 under three heads: from Hooke to 1800; the technique of the English micros- 

 copists and the German botanists from 1800 to 1875; modern microtechnique 

 from 1875 to the present time. For the first time the pioneer work of John 

 Hill has received the recognition it merits. Hill was one of the very few 

 workers in botany during the exceptionally barren eighteenth century, and 

 many of his methods were "rediscovered" after nearly 75 years. Hill 

 successfully used maceration methods, and in a crude way fixed and hardened 

 his material. He is beyond doubt the first botanist to use staining as an aid 

 to determine structure, the stain being an alcoholic tincture of cochineal. He 

 also understood and used mordants, injected vessels by boiling pieces of wood 

 in green sealing wax, cut .sections on a microtome, and cleared them in spirits 

 of turpentine. The credit of first using paraffin for interstitial imbedding is 

 given to Francotte, that of soap to Pfitzner, and that of celloidin to Busse. 

 The history and evolution of the microtome is traced from 1770 to the present 

 time, but no mention is made of the marvelously accurate rotary microtome 

 which has succeeded that of Minot.— W. J. G. Land. 



gated the influence of nutrition on the development of the sex organs of 

 Osmunda regal is japmika and Asplcnium Nidus. Previously he had shown 

 that factors of environment play important roles in the sexual development of 

 the gametophytes of Ceratopteris thalictroides and other ferns.* 1 In the present 



* Smith, Gilbert MorgAxV, The development of botanical microtechnique. 



2 » Nagai, Isaburo, On the influence of nutrition upon the development of sexual 

 organs in the fern prothallia. Jour. Coll. Agric. Univ. Tokyo 6:121-164. pi. 10. 



