No. 380.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 
] 597 
talia. The genitalia, though thus elaborately illustrated, are hardly 
referred to in the descriptions. On page 135 Pterophorus ambrosia is 
put down as a synonym of P. inguinatus, a conclusion that seems 
more than doubtful when PI. IV, Figs. 3, 4, and Pl. VI, Figs. 14, 15, 
are compared. 
The index of genera and of species issued with the separately 
paged reprints might have been omitted, as the references are to the 
original pagination, not to the pagination of the reprint. January, 
1898, on both the report and reprint, should not be considered as 
the date of publication, as the first advance copies were not sent out 
from the state printers until March 31, 1898. 
Finally the publication in an agricultural report of a systematic 
account of a family of so slight economic interest as the Ptero- 
phoridz may well be criticised, especially when so many species of 
prime importance to agriculturists await adequate treatment. 
BOTANY. 
The Morphology of Spore-producing Members. — With the 
improvements in microscopical technique and the increasing availa- 
bility of tropical types there have been during the last decade great 
additions to our knowledge of the structure of all groups of plants, 
and the pteridophytes have not been neglected. As might be 
expected, these investigations have not always confirmed the older 
views, and perhaps nowhere is this more marked than among the 
ferns. Until quite recently it has been generally accepted that the 
Leptosporangiatz, especially the Hymenophyllacez, were the more 
primitive ferns from which the Eusporangiates, the Ophioglossacez, 
and Marattiacee, have sprung. The result of these recent studies 
has been to throw much doubt upon this view, and to make it reason- 
ably certain that the latter groups are really the older ones, while the 
leptosporangiate ferns represent comparatively recent specialized 
types, which have arisen from eusporangiate ancestors. 
No more important contributions to this very interesting subject 
have been made than the series of studies upon spore-producing 
members, of which the present paper! is the third. Professor Bower 
1 Bower, F. O., Sc.D., F.R.S. Studies in the Morphology of Spore-producing 
Members, Marattiacex. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., Ser. B, vol. 189, 1897, pp. 35-81, 
Pls. 7~11 
