518 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
gives a general account of the structure and mode of propagation of 
Fungi, followed by a chapter on the mode of combating the diseases 
caused by them. Then succeeds a description of each separate parasite, 
taking the various families of Fungi in succession, followed by the 
Myxomycetes and the Scliizomycetes. Under each species reference 
is made to its already existing literature ; and a feature of the book is 
that the brief technical descriptions are reserved for a special chapter, 
and are kept separate from the general account of the life-history of 
the parasite, the nature of the disease caused by it, and the most efficient 
remedies. 
Fungi Parasitic on Lichens.* — In a further instalment of his paper 
on this subject, Herr W. Zopf describes the following new species : — 
Echinothecium reticulatum g. et sp. n., Microthyrium maculans , Licheno- 
sticta podetiicola , Pharcidia Arnoldiana , Phseospora CatolecMse, and 
Didymospheeria pulposa. The diagnosis of the new genus Echinothecium , 
belonging to the Sphseriaceae, is thus given : — Lichenicolous ; mycele 
superficial, composed of thick brown hypliae which anastomose copiously 
and become torulose when old ; peritheces arising as masses of tissue, 
provided with an ostiole and stiff simple hair-like appendages ; asci 
swollen, sessile, 8-spored, ejaculatory ; spores 2-celled, colourless, one 
cell longer than the other ; paraphyses and periphyses wanting. 
Spermogones of Lichens.f — Under the term spermogone Herr H. 
Gluck includes all the conidial fructifications of lichens. He does not 
believe in the sexuality of the spermatia. He distinguishes four types 
of spermogones, according as they are entirely imbedded in the thallus, 
or lie in swellings of the thallus, or are partially imbedded, or entirely 
free. The structure of the spermogones is described in detail. 
The sterigma of lichenologists, which is often multicellular and 
branched, is described as the conidial fructification ( Conidienstand ). 
The cell from which the spermatium is formed by abstriction or by 
the formation of a septum, is the sterigma ; all the remaining (sterile) 
cells are basal cells. 
Spermogones are classified under eight types, named from an im- 
portant genus belonging to each type : — the Peltigera, the Psora , the 
Cladonia , the Placodium , the Parmelia, the Sticta , the Physcia , and the 
Endocarpon types. In the first two the spermatia are detached from 
the sterigma by the formation of a septum ; while in all the others 
they are abstricted. In the third and fourth types the abstriction takes 
place from unicellular sterigmas ; while in the remainder the sterigmas 
are only prolongations of basal cells. The last three types are dis- 
tinguished by the relationship of the spermogones to the apotheces, by 
the contents of the spermogones, and by their physiological properties. 
Cladonieae.J — In the third part of his Monograph of the Cladonieje, 
Herr E. Wainio discusses their general structure; the following being 
some of the more important points that are brought out. 
* Nova Acta k. Leopold-Carol. Akad., lxx. (1898) pp. 241-88 (44 figs.). Cf. this 
Journal, 1897, p. 565. 
f Yerhandl. naturhist. Ver. Heidelberg, vi. (1899) pp. 81-216 (2 pis. and 50 figs.). 
See Bot. Centralbl., lxxviii. (1899) p. 275. 
% Acta Soc. p. fauna et flora Fennica, xiv. (1897) 268 pp. See Bot. Centralbl., 
lxxviii. (1899) p. 207. 
