Tg11| CURRENT LITERATURE 493 
species as Adiantum pedatum, Thuja occidentalis, Lilium canadense, Calypso 
bulbosa, Lonicera canadensis, Solidago squarrosa, Aster macrophyllus, and 
many other similar plants not found in Newfoundland, and which in eastern 
Canada “scrupulously avoid the more sterile areas.” This explanation and 
the considerable lists of “calciphiles” indicate that the writer believes the 
vegetation to respond directly to the chemical character of the substratum.— 
Gro. D. FULLER. 
Root tubercles of cycads.—Three papers on root tubercles of cycads, 
recording conflicting opinions, lay emphasis upon different features of these 
rather well known structures. ZACHSS pays particular attention to the fungus 
hyphae, which branch profusely and become coiled together, after which the 
coils become digested. The fungus infests the tissues, causing the abnormal 
development, and the cell reacts by absorbing the fungus, a phenomenon which 
reminds the author of phagocytosis in animals. The relation is not symbiosis, 
but parasitism. 
HokejS1° comes to the conclusion that the relation is symbiosis, and that 
the alga is the only cause of the abnormalities in the roots, the fungi and bac- 
teria being merely the accompaniments of degeneration. The alga enters by 
the lenticels. 
The third paper, by Miss Sprart,3? deals entirely with the life history of 
the alga, and gives a much more detailed account than has hitherto been avail- 
able. She finds that the heterocysts are reproductive bodies, the contents of 
which break up into gonidia capable of reproducing the filament, as described 
Branp for Nostoc. The central body is described as a simple structure, 
incapable of anything but direct division. No reference is made to the work 
of OLIVE, whose technic and figures might have been helpf 
None of the three writers refer to the work of Lrre,* who described the 
mode of entrance of the alga and the general development of the root tubercle. 
—CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Cretaceous flora of Japan.—SuzvuxK1 has described two conifers from 
the Upper Cretaceous of Japan as new. One of them is made the basis of a 
new genus (A biocaulis), and is said to be nearest to Abies among living forms; 
35 Zac, FRANz, Studie tiber Phagocytose in den Wurzelkndllchen der Cycadeen. 
Oesterr. Bot. Zeit. 60:49-55. pls. 2. 1910. 
36 Horesyst, J., Einiges tiber die symbiontische Alga in den Wurzeln von Cycas 
revoluta. Bull. Intern. Acad. Sci. Bohéme 15:1-10. figs. 24. 1910. 
37 Spratt, ETHEL Rose, Some great on the life history of Anabaena Cyca- 
deae. Ann. Botany 25:369-380. pi. 32. I9II. 
38 Bor. Gaz. 31: 265-271. 1901. 
39 Suzux1, Y., On the structure and affinities of two new conifers and a new fungus 
from the Une Cyetacooun of Hokkaido (Yezo), Bot. Mag. Tokyo 24:181-196. 
pl. 7. 1910. 
