314 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Tlie Bitegminatae comprise at least 315 genera. Of the 7 orders 
included in it, the Coulaceae, Heisteriaceee, Cathedraceae, Scorodocarpaceae, 
Ohaunochitaceae, and Erythropolaceae are dicotyledonous, and make up 
the family Heisterinejs. They are all dichlamydeous ; the pistil is com- 
posed of syncarpous carpels forming a plurilocular ovary, the carpels 
are uniovulate, and the fruit is a drupe with fleshy exocarp. The re- 
maining (monoeotyledonous) order is the Gramineae, forming the family 
Graminine^j. 
The author further points out the inaccuracy of the accepted terms 
for the primary divisions of Phanerogams, the Angiosperms and Gymno- 
sperms; seeing that in the Epliedraceae, Welwitschieas, Gnetaceae, 
Araucarieae, and Podocarpeae, all of which are usually included in the 
Gymnosperms, the seed is as completely enveloped in an ovary as it is 
in the Angiosperms. He prefers a primary classification into those with 
and those without a stigma, the Stigmata and the Astigmat^, the latter 
being identical with the Archegoniatae ; but even this character is not 
without exception, the Welwitschieae being actually stigmatic and an- 
archegoniate. 
Alternation of Generations.* — Eight Hon. Sir E. Fry brings for- 
ward objections to the theory of an alternation of generations in the 
higher Cryptogams. He maintains, in the first place, that there is no fixed 
and impenetrable barrier between the oophore and the sporophore genera- 
tions, one of them not unfrequcntly passing over into the other. The 
different generations in the life-history of any given plant are not sepa- 
rate organisms, but different parts or stages of the same organism. The 
reproductive energy operates in plants in such a variety of ways as to 
render it improbable that the facts of reproduction can, with our present 
knowledge, be reduced to any one scheme, or referred to any single 
archetype. 
Plankton-Flora of the Swiss Lakes.j — Dr. C. Schroter gives a com- 
parative account of the plankton-flora (Bacteria, Cyanopliyceae, Peri- 
dineae, Diatomaceae, Chlorophyceae, Phanerogamia) of the lakes of 
Zurich, Constance, Lucerne, and Geneva. The conditions favourable or 
otherwise for the appearance of these organisms are discussed, and the 
Variations which some of them exhibit in form and structure in the 
different lakes, and in others outside the limits of Switzerland. 
B. CRYPTOGAMIA. 
Cryptogamia Vascularia. 
Cheirostrobus a new Type of Fossil Cone.J — Dr. D. H. Scott de- 
scribes a remarkable fossil from the Calciferous Sandstone near Burnt- 
island, which he makes the type of a new genus Cheirostrobus , from the 
palmate division of the sporophyll-lobes, the sporophylls themselves 
being arranged in crowded whorls. He regards it as most nearly allied 
to Sphenojphyllum among the Pteridophyta. 
* Nature, lv. (1897) pp. 422-7. 
t Neujahrsbl. (1897) v. d. Naturf. Gesell. Zurich (60 pp., 1 pi., and 3 figs.). 
X Proe. Roy. Soc., ix. (1897) pp. 417-24. Ann. of Bot., xi. (1897) pp. 168-75. 
