304 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [APRIL 
THE BIOLOGICAL ANTAGONISM BETWEEN CALCIUM 
. AND MAGNESIUM 
In a recent number of the BoranicaL GAZETTE (49:41-50. 1910), 
Cuas. B. Lipman stated that in regard to Bacillus subtilis an antagonism 
does not exist between calcium and magnesium. This fact is quite natural, 
however, since the microbes (with rare exceptions, as for example Azoto- 
bacter) do not require lime for their life and multiplication, and on the 
other hand an antagonism does not exist between those elements themselves, 
but merely between their functions. Magnesium salts, in the usual biologi- 
cal concentrations, cannot exert any poisonous action on lower fungi and 
algae, hence there is no need of any antagonistic element. These points 
have been extensively treated in a paper entitled ‘“The physiological réle of 
mineral nutrients in plants,”’* to which the reader may be referred.—OSCcAR 
Loew, Munich, Germany. 
«Bull. 45, Bur. Pl. Ind., U. S. Dept. Agric. 1903; especially on p. 44 and pp- 
49-54. 
