450 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
and Athyrium filix-femina. The resulting hybrid partook more of the 
character of the latter than of the former male parent, and was abund- 
antly fertile. 
In another j)aper * the same author notes the development of more 
than one sporophyte from a prothallus in the cases of an Athyrium and a 
Scolopendrium. 
Pits in the Cyatheaceae and Marattiaceae.j — From an examination 
of the pits (Staubgriibchen) in the stem and leaf-stalk of various species 
in these two orders of Filices, Herr E. Hannig comes to the following 
conclusions. The stem- and leaf-pits of the Cyatheaceae are, in their 
structure and development, equivalent organs. They act for a time as 
pneumathodes, but may be compared with lenticels in their structure and 
origin. They have no relationship to the streaks (Male) on the leaf- 
cushions of Lepidodendron. The pits on the stipules and leaf-stalks of 
the Marattiaceae are also equivalent in their origin and structure ; they 
furnish a special contrivance for promoting an active interchange of gas 
during the development of the bud, and close when the lamina is able 
itself to assimilate after the full development of the leaf. The stomatic 
openings on which they arise in the Cyatheaceae and Marattiaceae are 
independent organs, forming a highly differentiated state of contrivances 
for respiration. The stomates on the stipules of Marattia Verschaffeltii 
furnish an example of very great reduction. The portion of the cortex 
of the stipules of the Marattiaceae hitherto styled the periderm differs 
completely in its chemical character, structure, and mode of renewal, 
from all cork structures hitherto examined. 
Muscineae. 
New Genera of Musci. — Under the name Nadeaudia schistostegiella 
g. et sp. n., M. E. Bescherelle t describes a moss from Tahiti. The fol- 
lowing is the diagnosis of the genus, which he places near to Hymenodon : 
— Dioica ; habitus schistostegiaceus ; caules simplices, interne nudi, 
superne frondiformes ; folia erecto-patentia, suprema erecta, cellulis 
quadratis viridibus areolata, integerrima, costa cum apice tiniente ; peri- 
chaetium terminale ; capsula (?) pedicello longo basi geniculato laevi. 
In a subsequent paper § M. Bescherelle sinks the genus Nadeaudia 
in Calomnion. 
The following new genus from Australia, belonging to the Phascaceae, 
is described by Herr C. Muller, || in addition to a large number of new 
species. Beekettia : — Habitus Bruchise ; folia pottiacea, marginata, e 
cellulis pottiaceis granulosis reticulata, aristato-nervosa, apice acute 
dentata ; capsula phascacea, minuta ; calyptra majuscula, pyramidati-cam- 
panulata, basin versus angustata, fere calymperacea. 
On Leskea Austini Sull. Mr. G. N. Best IT founds a new genus Fabro- 
leskea , which he regards as an outlying genus of the Fabroniaceae. 
* Rep. Brit. Ass. Toronto, 1897 (1898) p. 867. 
t Bot, Ztg., lvi. (1898) l te Abth., pp. 9-33 (1 pi.). 
X Rev. Bryol., xxv. (1898) p. 11. § Tom. cit., p. 49. j 
l| Hedwigia, xxxvii. (1898) p. 77. 
Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxv. (1898) pp. 108-9. 
