316 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [APRIL 
Oenothera. He gives the telosynaptic account, involving the segmentation of 
the thick spirem (pachynema) into a single chain of chromosomes. No new 
facts regarding reduction are brought out, and there are no deviations from the 
history of reduction as already known for O. Lamarckiana and its mutants. 
The reviewer, in a paper before the Botanical Society of America in 1908,” 
showed that the process of reduction in the mutating forms can be duplicated 
by figures of every stage in O. biennis and O. laevifolia, there being the same 
tendency not to form close pairs, and the same loose arrangement of the chromo- 
somes on the heterotypic spindle. This permits of occasional irregularities 
in the distribution of the chromosomes during reduction, and these were found 
to occur in normal material of O. biennis, as in the mutating forms. Thus no 
differences in the method of reduction in the different species and races of 
Oenothera have yet been found, except in O. grandiflora, in which Davis® 
obtains what he thinks are rings, in the place of loose heterotypic bivalents. 
As the reviewer has already pointed out,3! the supposed rings are probably 
due to a greater attraction between homologous chromosomes in 0. grandi- 
flora than in the other forms.—R. R. GATEs. 
Florida peat deposits.—This reports? is the result of a general survey of 
peat formations and distribution in Florida, without detailed examination of 
studies. Immature topography affords the most favorable surface water 
conditions for deposit of peat if associated with proper climate, not too dry 
nor too cold, as in glaciated areas of eastern North America and of Europe, 
and in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States. Florida seems t0 
offer ideal conditions, having a greater variety of swamps, bogs, marshes, and 
places where peat accumulates than any equal area in North America, and 
also an ample rainfall. A tentative classification of the peat is based on 
nature of the water with which it was found associated: salty, muddy, cal- 
careous, swamp waters, with several exceptional deposits. The best and 
deepest peat is that in the peat prairies classed as “filled lakes”’; under the 
same division is included the northern everglades. Analyses of 53 samples 
indicate a good average quality, the fuel value being above the average for 
pressed peat (8500 B.T.U.; Davis) for two-thirds of the samples. The 
of peat plants includes 83 families of angiosperms, 6 conifers, [soeles, 2 lyco- 
podiums, Azolla sp., 11 ferns, several mosses, and Chara.—LAuURA GANO. 
Sporangia of Weichselia—This is a cretaceous genus of fernlike ae 
known heretofore only from the bipinnate sterile fronds. The question 
: — Gates, R. R., Further studies of oenotheran cytology. Science N.S. 29: 269- 
® Davis, B. M., Pollen development of Oenothera grandiflora. Annals of Botany 
999 
x soe : ., Preliminary report on the peat deposits eased? i 
Included in third Ann. Rep. Fla. State Geol. Survey. 1910. 
