394 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Saccardo’s Chromotaxia.* — Sig. Saccardo has published a little 
work which has for its object to give by means of the Latin tongue a 
definite term for the principal shades of colour of fungi, and thus 
avoid the ambiguity so frequently resulting from using modern collo- 
quialisms. Of these shades of colour the author proposes fifty, a number 
quite sufficient for practical purposes. 
As examples from yellow, luteus, flavus, citrinus, sulfureus, may 
serve to indicate the author’s proposal, and though this looks somewhat 
severe at first sight, the author’s brochure facilitates his scheme by 
giving the equivalent of the Latin terms in Italian, French, German, 
and English. 
Though limited to fungi, this method of nomenclature is suitable 
for extension to other objects of natural history, and the same idea leads 
the author to suggest in a little note that the words or symbols em- 
ployed in cryptogamic botany should have a precise and uniform 
signification. 
B. CRYPTOGAMIA. 
Cryptogamia Vascularia. 
Relationships of the Archegoniata.f — Pursuing his investigations 
on the phylogeny of the Arcliegoniata — in which he includes Gymno- 
sperms as well as Vascular Cryptogams and Muscineae — Prof. D. H. 
Campbell points out that the Anthoceroteae among Hepaticse are probably 
the starting point, on the one hand of the Musci through the Sphag- 
naceae, on the other hand of the Pteridophytes through the Ophioglos- 
saceae, the Anthoceroteae themselves being possibly derived from some 
such form as Coleoclisete among Algae. The prevailing types of existing 
forms of Pteridophytes, the Filicine®, and among them the Polypodi- 
aceae, constitute in all probability a recent and highly specialized 
group ; no unmistakable leptosporangiate remains are known earlier 
than the Mesozoic formations. 
With regard to the phylogeny of Phanerogams, Prof. Campbell 
thinks it probable that Gymnosperms and Angiosperms may have had a 
different origin. The embryo of Isoetes much more nearly resembles 
that of a typical Monocotyledon than it does that of a Gymnosperm ; 
while, on the other hand, the genetic relationship of Angiosperms to the 
Selaginellacese seems hardly doubtful. The assumption of a separate 
origin for the two groups of Angiosperms seems to the author quite 
unwarrantable. In all forms yet investigated, the uniformity in the 
essential structure of the flower, and especially in the development of 
the embryo-sac, seems to point unmistakably to a common origin. 
Branching of the Aerial Roots of Selaginella. t — According to 
Herr G. F. L. Sarauw the so-called “ rhizophores” (Niigeli and Leitgeb) 
of S. Martensii and some other species of Selaginella, are true roots, 
the absence of a root-cap not being conclusive evidence of their cauline 
* ‘ Chromotaxia sen nomenclator colorum polyglottus additis speciminibus 
coloratis,’ Padoue, 1891. “ Sur les regies A suivre dans la description des especes 
ve'getales et surtout des cryptogames,” Bull. Soc. Mycol. de Frunce, 1891. See 
Bonnier’s Rev. Gen. de Bot., iii. (1891) p. 553. 
t Bot. Gazette, xvi. (1891) pp. 323-33. Cf. this Journal, 1890, p. 637. 
j Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., ix. (1891) Gen.-Versamml. Heft, pp. 51-65. 
