660 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
The differences between the two kinds of colonies are recognisable 
by the following distinctions. Spore-bearing cells are distinguished 
from the spore-free cells by means of the iodine reaction which stains 
the spores blue or the glycogen violet-brown ; asporogenous cells, being 
free from glycogen, do not stain. Spore-bearing colonies usually liquefy 
wort-gelatin sooner than spore-free colonies. Spore-bearing colonies 
are white and remain white ; while the spore-free colonies are only white 
at first, and become brown afterwards. 
The author appears to think that the differences between the two 
kinds of colony are due to heredity ; and acting onjthis idea, he has been 
able to regenerate the functions of sporulation and proteolysis by care- 
fully selecting suitable and proper cells from an old culture which had 
almost entirely lost these functions. 
Biology of Stereum hirsutum.* — Prof. H. Marshall Ward has made 
some observations on the mode in which this fungus attacks woody tissue. 
He finds that, in the case of the horse-chestnut, the liyphae attack the 
walls of the tracheids and other xylem-elements from within, gradually 
delignify them layer by layer, and then consume the swollen cellulose 
matrix. The mycele grows more luxuriantly in the alburnum than in 
the duramen. 
Polyporoid form of Mushroom.j — M. N. Patouillard describes a 
specimen of Agaricus campestris bearing, on the underside of the pileus, 
a polyporoid hymenium, closely resembling that of a Polyporus or 
Boletus. The basids and spores were normal in size and structure. 
The author believes that many so-called species of the Polyporem are 
really polyporid forms of Agaricineas. 
Rabenhorst’s Cryptogamic Flora of Germany (Fungi ImperfectiU 
— Under this section of the exhaustive work on the Cryptogams of Ger- 
many, Austria and Switzerland, are comprised all the conidial fructifica- 
tion-forms which precede or accompany the mature ascoform of the 
Ascomycetes (Pyrenomycetes and Discomycetes) ; and their elaboration 
has been entrusted to Herr A. Allescher. 4 hey are arranged under 
three orders: — (1) Sphaeropsideas, spores abstricted in black or light- 
coloured, mostly -spherical, lenticular or conical receptacles (peritheces 
or pycnids), or more or less conspicuous sporophores; (2) Melanconieae, 
spores or conids formed in sori which are only at first covered by the 
epiderm, but then emerge on sporophores or basids, and are therefore 
not enclosed in true receptacles or peritheces; (3) Hypliomycetes, spores 
or conids usually developed superficially or nearly so, on the substratum, 
on free hyphae, not in receptacles, very rarely in the interior of insects. 
The Sphaeropsideae are again divided into four families, — the Sphaerioideae, 
Hectrioideae, Leptostromaceae, and Excipulaceae. The Sphaerioideae are 
classified under eight sections, and the first of these, the Hyalosporae, 
comprises 26 genera. Of the first genus, Phyllosticta, 490 species are 
described, and a commencement is made of Phoma, with 296 species. 
They are arranged, in both genera, in accordance with the habit and 
* Trans. Roy. Soc., clxxxix. (1898) pp. 123-34 (5 pis.). 
t Bull. Soc. Mycol. France, xv. (1898) pp. 46-7 (1 pi.). See Bot. Central!)] ., 
lxxv. (1898) p. 240. 
X l ter Band, vi. Abth. Lief. 59-62, 256 pp. and 5 figs., Leipzig, 1898. 
