646 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
the bulbils are produced close to the flower-stalks, and are apparently 
the result of the removal of the flower. The author believes that the 
removal of sterile stems weakens the bulbs instead of strengthening 
them. 
Trichomes of Coniferse.* — Contrary to the statements of other ob- 
servers, Freih. C. von Tubeuf finds hair-structures of various kinds in 
all the organs of conifers. Ail the species which have an ectotrophic 
mycorhiza — i.e. all Abietineae — form also root-hairs ; and this is the 
case also with the Taxaceae and Podocarpese, which have an endotropliic 
mycorhiza. In some Coniferae no root-hairs could be detected. 
Hairs on Tubers of Cyclamen.^ — Herr F. Hildebrand finds certain 
species of Cyclamen — C. ibericum, Coum 3 repandum — to differ from the 
majority of the genus in the following respect. In all species the tubers 
are, when young, covered with a felt of club-shaped usually brauched 
hairs, which are found also on all other parts of the plant except the 
petals and stamens ; those on the tubers fall off, in most species, at an 
early period, and are replaced by a layer of cork. In the species in 
question, on the contrary, the hairs are persistent, and no layer of cork 
is formed. The terminal cell of each hair usually undergoes further 
longitudinal division, so that they form tufts. This difference appears 
to be associated with difference of habit, the species in which the hairs 
are persistent blossoming in the early spring instead of in the summer 
or autumn. 
j8. Physiology. 
(1) Reproduction and Embryology. 
Basigamy and Homceogamy4 — M. P. van Tieghem adduces a num- 
ber of additional examples of basigamous impregnation in no less than 
14 genera belonging to the Loranthaceac, Balanophoraccae, Nuytsiaceae 
( Nuytsia ), and Opiliacese (Olacaceae). Nnytsia has a unilocular ovary 
and a free central placenta destitute of ovules. The mother-cells of the 
endosperm spring from the base of the placenta, and become elongated 
at their base to meet the pollen-tube. The same is the case in several 
genera of Yiscaceae (Loranthaceae). It is in the basal triad of the 
endosperm that the oosphere, or cell which is impregnated by the 
pollen-tube, is differentiated from the others. Other examples are given 
(Loranthaceae, Balanophoraceae, Opiliaceae), which possess rudimentary 
ovules, and in which the mode of impregnation is basigamous. 
Balanophora indica possesses the smallest known pistil, the ovary 
measuring 0 * 20 by 0 • 15 mm., the length of the style being 0 * 4 mm., and 
the whole resembling the archegone of a moss. The central cell of the 
ovary becomes directly the mother-cell of the endosperm. The nucleus 
of this cell divides longitudinally, and gives birth to two branches 
shaped like a horseshoe, one branch being longer than the other. The 
oosphere and the synergids are found in this longer branch, and it is 
usually the oosphere in this branch that is impregnated by the pollen- 
tube. But in the other branch the protoplasm is differentiated into 
antipodals ; and the pollen-tube may reach the summit of this branch 
* Foratl.-Naturw. Zeitschr, 1896, 51 pp. and 12 pis. See Bot. Centralbl., Ixvii. 
(1896) p. 50. f Bot. Zt g., liv. (1896) l te Abtheil., pp. 133-9 (1 pi.). 
X Journ. de Bot. Morot, x. (1896) pp. 245-50. Cf. this Journal, ante, p. 206. 
