b 
1878.] Botany. 819 
class of Thallophytes. Mr. Bennett points out that not only do 
the Characee differ from Thallophytes in the most essential 
points of structure of that class, viz: in possessing a distinct axis 
and branches; they do not, either. display the distinguishing char- 
acteristics of the Carposporeæ, viz: the formation, as the result 
of the impregnation of the female organ, of a sporocarp consisting 
of two essentially different parts, a fertile part and an envelope or 
pericarp which is not derived directly from the female organ. 
Mr. Bennett also calls attention to the fact that the term “ pro- 
embryo” has been misapplied by many writers to the structure 
which proceeds immediately from the germination of the spore 
displaying the phenomenon of alternation of generations. e 
term alternation of generations implies two distinct starting 
points in the life-history of the plant, impregnation and germina- 
ination. In Characee, almost alone among Cryptogams, the 
oospore or fertilized odsphere germinates immediately in the soil 
without the intervention of a non-sexual generation. Caruel, for 
reasons assigned in his new system of classification, to which we 
have already referred, insists on placing the Characee by them- 
selves as a primary group of the vegetable kingdom, under the 
name Seiti ka: pyara ae Phzenerogams and vas- 
cular Cryptog —A. W. Ben 
BOTANICAL isis —In a short paper by Dr. Ewart, on the Life- 
history of Bacterium ates and Micrococcus, the author regards it 
provisionally as distinct from Bacterium. His observations on 
eee termo, ss eereaty. with reference to the effects of desicca- 
tion, o erent temperatures and of ebullition will be of value. 
in future pers: Nk of like nature. Mr. Geddes and Dr. Ewart 
describe also in the Proceedings of the Royal Society the life-his- 
tory of Spirillum, and they conclude that “the forms described by 
various authors as Vibrio are nee either (1) Zigzag dividing 
Bacillus ; (2) slightly waved Bacillus; or (3) undeveloped Spiril- 
dix by T. Caruel, the editor. In men’s Journal of Botany, 
for October, J. B. Balfour describes some points in the morphol- 
ogy of Halophila, and G. S. Boulger contributes an article on the 
placenta of Prmulacee. The Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 
ub, for tember, contains a list of plants introduced with 
ballast and on made land in Jersey City; Lists of gi Island 
and Staten Island and Rhode Island plants are also give 
Martindale contributes to the September number of the Botanical 
XU.—NO, XI 55 
