222 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
pletely passive. Each antherozoid lias only a single very long flagellum, 
which may be six times as long as the diameter of the head, and is often 
spiral. The greater part of the head is hyaline, one side being occupied 
by a thin layer of denser protoplasm ; and the cilium arises from about 
the centre of this denser protoplasm. In Taonia atomaria similar 
phenomena were observed. 
Tilopteridese.* * * § — Mr. G. Brebner reviews the genera of this small 
order of Pliaeosporese, and considers that the genus Scaphospora Kjellm. 
must be entirely suppressed, S. speciosa being but a stage of Haplospora 
globosa. Choristocarpus does not properly belong to the Tilopteridese , 
which are thus limited to the two genera, Tilopteris and Haplospora, and 
to only two well-established species, T. Meriensii and H. globosa, with 
two other doubtful ones, H. arctica and H. Kingii. In Haplospora five 
different conditions have been found with regard to the reproductive 
organs, viz. sporo-hermaphrodite, hermaphrodite, sporo-antlieridic, sporo- 
oogonic, and non-sexual. 
Structure of Codium4 — Mr. H. H. Dixon finds, in many of the 
branches of the coenocyte of Codium tomentosum, a stout axial strand 
which stains violet with Delafield’s haematoxvlin. It is thin and more 
delicate in the narrow intervening parts of the coenocyte, and thickens 
gradually as it passes into the enlarged terminations which form the 
surface of the plant. These processes have a club-shaped head, and are 
often tubular. They are composed of some form of cellulose. 
Fungi. 
Fungus-Parasites of Cereals. if — Prof. J. Eriksson gives a resume of 
the facts at present known respecting the diseases of cereals in Sweden 
produced by Fungi. He states that there are, at most, ten species or 
specialised forms which attack corn-crops ; a list is given of the species 
of cereals and of other grasses infested by them. Only one species, 
Puccinia simplex, is confined to a single host-plant, the barley. The 
appearance of the various kinds of rust depends, in the first place, on a 
pathological substance ( Krankheitsstojf ) present in the host-plant, some- 
times inherited from the mother-plant, and maintaining a latent life as 
mycoplasm ; secondly, on infection from neighbouring diseased plants. 
The intensity of the disease depends, firstly, on the energy by which 
external conditions are able to develop the mycoplasm- stage of the 
parasite into the visible mycele-stage ; and, secondly, on fresh infection 
from without. 
Two new Kinds of Red Yeast.§ — M. K. Yabe obtained two new 
•species of yeast from the soil of rice-fields and from rice-straw. Both 
resemble S. rosaceus in not forming ascospores. 
S. japonicus. The cells are elliptic, but approach a more globular 
form when nourished with meat extract. Size, in Pasteur’s solution, 
* Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc., viii. (1897) pp. 176-87 (1 pi.). 
t Ann. of Bot., xi. (1897) pp. 588-90 (2 figs.). 
t Bot. Centralbl., lxxii. (1897) pp. 321-5, 354-62. Bot. Gazette, xxv. (1898) 
pp. 26-38. 
§ Bull. Coll. Agric. Imp. Univ. Tokyo, 1897, iii. pp. 233-6. See Journ. Chem. 
Soc., 1897, Chem. Abst., p. 578. 
