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Freaks in Mosses. In the Bot. Gazette for August, 1903, Miss Mary C„ 
Bliss, of Wellesley College, records finding an archegonium of Poly trie hum 
juniperinuin with two distinct venters, one above the other, “The lower ven- 
ter containing two nuclei, which probably represent the egg cell and the ven- 
tral canal cell. The upper venter has doubtless been developed from the first 
neck canal cell and contains but a single nucleus. Directly above in the 
neck of the archegonium, is the nucleus of second neck canal cell.” In the 
February number of the same journal W. C. Coker recorded the occurrence 
of two egg cells in the archegonium of Mnium. From her. own observations 
and those of Coker, Miss Bliss is led to believe that the neck canal cells are 
potential egg cells and that the egg cell and the neck canal cell have a com- 
mon origin. 
In Hedwigia, 45 : 178-181, plates X and XI, Prof. W. Monkemeyer 
describes a number of interesting freaks, such as a cleistocarpous capsule of 
Bryum saxonicum Hagen, and ten abnormal capsules of Pogonatum nanum r 
varying from completely cleistocarpous to operculate, with traces of a peri- 
stome attached to the lid. All the capsules of Pogonatum were globular and 
had broken through the calyptra instead of tearing it off at the base and car- 
rying it up on the top of the sporophyte in the normal way. The setae were 
bent and the hairy calyptras attached to their sides. Those of our readers 
who have read Dr. R. H. True’s paper on “The Physiology of the Sphoro- 
phyte of Funaria and Mnium” in Beihefte Bot. Ceritralblatt, 19 l : 34-44, 1905, 
will at once infer that the entire abnormality may have followed from the 
breaking through the archegonium by the young sporophyte and the conse- 
quent inability to develop, like that found by True in Funaria when the 
operculum was removed. 
A full account of Dr. True’s conclusions will be published in the Bryol- 
ogist at an early date. 
Prof. Monkemeyer also records several cases of two or three peristomes 
in the same capsule, one above the other. In one case in Dicranella varia, 
between the urn and the true operculum was inserted a hollow cylinder: 
inside this were two peristomes attached by the slender tips of the teeth, the 
upper being inverted with its base attached to the lid In a specimen of 
Bryum saxonicum there were two hollow cylinders, one above the other, and 
three peristomes, the two upper being inverted. In the same species there was 
also a case like that of Dicranella varia but the upper portions of the teeth 
were not so fully developed. There was an annulus at the base of each peri- 
stome but the inner peristome appeared as merely a delicate yellow mem- 
brane. 
* 
* * 
In the Botanical Gazette for August, 1906, Prof. George J. Peirce, of 
Stanford University, gives an account of work with “ Anthoceros and its 
Nostoc Colonies,” and of field observations on the same. He concludes that 
A nthoceros does better without the Nostoc, although he is not able to say that 
the Nostoc is parasitic. 
* 
