1914] CURRENT LITERATURE 251 
Seedling anatomy of Lupinus.—BECQUEREL® has studied the development 
of the lupine (L. albus and L. luteus), applying to this plant the “dynamic” 
method, by which he correlates the diverse results of other botanists and shows 
how these differences have arisen. He also utilizes his results to combat vari- 
ous current views of the transitional region of the seedling. This “dynamic” 
method is much in vogue among a group of French botanists, headed by 
HAUVEAUD. Instead of taking a seedling of no definite age, plants of all ages 
and stages in development are studied and compared. This is the method of 
necessity employed in studying animal development, but has been considered 
of little importance in plants, because of the slight amount of ‘making over”’ 
of vegetable tissues which is possible. BECQUEREL, however, does claim that a 
most important change of this nature takes place in the hypocotyl—the absorp- 
tion of the primary wood, which in the young plant comes up very high in the 
cotyledonary region and in the older plant is not found at all in the same region 
and only in a vestigial condition at a lower level. This variation in structure 
has no doubt led, as BECQUEREL claims, to the diverse statements as to the 
height at which the traces of root structure have been found by different inves- 
tigators, but that it is due to the absorption of the primary wood and has the 
phylogenetic significance that BECQUEREL ascribes to it cannot be accepted 
on the evidence presented. I find no statement to indicate that BECQUEREL 
has taken into account a very obvious and natural cause for the disintegration 
of the primary wood. There is a rapid enlargement and elongation of the 
elements in the hypocotyl, in contrast to the merismatic activity of the more 
apical parts. In this growth the tracheary elements naturally cannot take 
part, and in consequence become dissociated and disorganized, their function 
being assumed by the secondary elements which now appear. Again, Brc- 
QUEREL’s statement that these elements have disappeared by reason of absorp- 
ion, as in animal tissues, postulates the presence of an enzyme such as 
hadromase, and this has not been shown to occur in any plants except the 
xylophilous fungi. 
__ The objections that BECQUEREL raises to the current views of the transi- 
Hon region between stem and root will lead, no doubt, to clearer ideas and 
Wording of the subject in future texts.—R. B. THoMson. 
Sea-water and the distribution of plants.—The discovery of any efficient 
means of determining in a quantitative manner the factors limiting the extent 
and composition of various plant associations must be regarded as an important 
Contribution to ecology. In salt marshes the concentration of salt in the soil 
water has long been regarded as a limiting factor, and now HARSHBERGER™ has 
oe : 
S Becqueret, P., L’ontogénie vasculaire de la plantule du lupin. Ses consé- 
quences pour certaines théories de l’anatomie classique. Bull. Soc. Bot. France 60: 
177-186. pl. 4. figs. 5. 1913. 
- HARSHBERGER, J. W., An hydrometric investigation of the influence of sea-water 
on the distribution of salt marsh and estuarine plants. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. 50:457- 
496. pls. 2. figs. 7. IQIL 
