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In the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club for April, 1909, Vol. 36, No. 
4, there will be found an article on “Sex in dioecious plants” by Chester 
Arthur Darling, with three plates. It is a most important contribution to the 
study of the general problems connected with the determination of sex in 
plants. Experiments with two mosses Barbula uhguiculata and Cerato- 
don purpureus are described as well as with other Bryophyta, such as 
Marchantia polymorpha, a Mucor and so on through the flowering plants. 
The paper concludes with a list of the literature consulted. 
Mr. W. E. Nicholson, Lewes, Sussex, England, has published in the 
“ Hastings and East Sussex Naturalist,” January, 1908, Vol. I, No. 3, a paper 
on “The Mossesof Sussex,” pp. 79-110. It contains much of general inter- 
est and is also a model for similar work which could well be undertaken by a 
number of our Society members in their home localities. 
In the “Revue Bryologique” for January, 1909, Mr. Nicholson has eight 
pages of “ Notes on Mosses from South Tyrol and Carinthia.” In the same 
publication for March, 1909, is a paper on “ Distichophyllum carinatum 
Dixon and Nicholson, a species and genus of Mosses new to Europe,” also 
“A Contribution to the Bryology of Tornean, Lapland; with a discussion on 
the relationship of Mnium hymenophyllum and Mnium hymenophy lloides ” 
by H. N. Dixon. 
The Third Biennial Report of the Commissioners of the State Geological 
and Natural History Society of the State of Connecticut has been issued. It 
is to be obtained by addressing William North Rice, Hartford, Conn. It 
gives the plan and scope of the work and much valuable information. 
We have been asked a number of times to give approximate figures for 
the different classes of plant life. This has been done stating the authority 
quoted. In a recent number of “The Ohio Naturalist,” April, 1909, in an arti- 
cle by John H. Schaffner on The Classification of Plants, Part V., he gives an 
interesting account of the classification of the plant kingdom. We refer our 
readers to the article from which we take the following summary. 
The phyla with their classes and approximate number of species, maybe 
characterized as follows : 
1. Schizophyta. Fission Plants. 2,400 species. 
2. Myxophyta. Slime Moulds. 400 species. 
3. Diatom'eae Diatomes. 3,000 species. 
4. Conjugata. 1,200 species. 
5. Gonidiophyta. 2,000 species. 
6. Phaeophyta. Brown Algae. 1,000 species. 
7. Rhodophyta. Red Algae. 2,000 species. 
8. Chareae. Stoneworts. 160 species. 
9. Mycophyta. 47,000 species. 
10. Bryophyta. Hepaticeae, Sphagneae, Andreaeae, Musci, Antho- 
cerotes. 17,000 species. 
