140 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Aupust 15,185S. 
This task has been undertaken by Messrs. Bennett and Murray, and 
in the work now before us, the title of which is given above, we have 
the results of their labours. 
We have no hesitation in saying that this is an extremely valuable 
contribution to the literature of Cryptogamic botany, and it will become 
a text book for students as well as a useful compendium of existing 
knowledge for botanists generally. It does not claim to be a popular or 
indeed an original work, but is a scientific exposition of Cryptogamic 
structure, and a condensation of information obtained from a great 
variety of sources. But in it is incorporated much of the original work 
of the authors, Mr. Bennett having undertaken the Vascular Crypto¬ 
gams, the Muscinem, the Algse, and the Scliizophyaceie ; Mr. Murray 
having dealt with the Fungi, Mycetozoa, and Schizomycetes. The 
authors invite original investigators to send them respectively as the 
divisions named, though each holds himself responsible for the whole of 
the volume. 
The book comprises 473 closely printed pages and contains 378 ex¬ 
cellent illustrations from different sources, but including many that are 
original. All have been selected with great care, are duly acknow¬ 
ledged, and assist considerably in elucidating the descriptions in the 
letterpress. One important matter deserves special notice—namely, the 
attempt to simplify the nomenclature by anglicising the terms employed 
in designating the respective organs. In the place of Sporangium, 
Archegonium, Antherium, See., we now have “ sporange,” “archegone,” 
“ antherid,” “esenobe,” “ sclerote,” “epiderm.” &c. The use of the 
term “ spore ” is also restricted to “ any ceil produced by ordinary pro¬ 
cesses of vegetation, and not directly by a union of sexual elements, 
which becomes detached for the purpose of direct vegetative propaga¬ 
tion.” The word is, however, compounded with other terms to denote 
special characters in certain classes, as “ chlamydospores” in the 
Protophyta, sporangiospores in the Myxomycetes, &c. In some of the 
vascular Cryptogams, as, for instance, in the Selaginellas, two forms of 
spores are produced, one series having hitherto been termed macrospores 
by many writers, and the other microspores. Messrs. Bennett and Murray 
now discard the former term in favour of megaspore, as in all respects 
preferable, and that is adopted throughout the volume. Antherozoid 
is also employed instead of spermatozoid for the fertilising agents 
furnished with vibratile cilia and moving by their aid, pollinoid being 
applied to motionless antherozoids destitute of cilia. In several other 
respects alterations and improvements have been effected in the 
existing systems of nomenclature. 
The work is in seven sub-divisions, dealing respectively with 
vascular Cryptogams, Muscinem, Characere, Algm, Fungi, Mycetozoa, 
and Protophyta, the descending order having been adopted in prefer¬ 
ence to the ascending as more in accordance with the method of 
arrangement in such works adopted by the best authorities, and on the 
principle of proceeding from the known to the unknown. Under each 
sub-division are groups, classes, and orders, but except in the lowest 
classes the distinguishing characters of genera are not dealt with except 
as illustrating the peculiarities of the order or class. After each section 
a list is given of the books consulted, and each of the larger divisions is 
accompanied by a review of the fossil members of the families, some 
seventeen pages being apportioned to the fossil vascular Cryptogams. 
As an example of the style adopted, and also as conveying the most 
recent information upon a subject that is still very imperfectly under¬ 
stood amongst practical horticulturists, we give the following extract 
upon the fertilisation of Ferns, the three illustrations having been 
kindly lent by Messrs. Longmans to accompany the description : — 
“ The germinating spore develops into the prothallium by the 
bursting of the cuticularised exospore, and the rapid growth and 
division of the contents of the endospore into a plate of cells. Before 
germination the contents of the spore become invested with a new 
cellulose membrane. But the tabular prothallium does not always 
result directly from the contents of the spore. In the Hymenophyl- 
laceae the spore undergoes division, even before the rupture of the 
exospore, into three cells, one of which only attains great development, 
dividing by transverse septa, and branching until it greatly resembles 
the protoneme of a Moss ; the flat prothallia then springing from lateral 
shoots. In most of the Polypodiacese. which include by far the greater 
number of the genera of Ferns, and in the Schizaeacem, the contents of 
the spore develop directly into a short segmented filiform protonemal 
structure, which expands at the apex into a cordate or reniform plate 
of tissue, consisting at first of only a single layer of cells. If a single 
apical cell is present, it soon disappears, and is replaced by a growing 
point situated in a depression at the anterior end of the prothallium, 
behind which a cushion, several layers in thickness, is formed by 
tangential cell divisions. The prothallium is most commonly monoecious, 
though the sexual organs may not appear at the same time, and is 
strictly bilateral or dorsiventral, the result, according to Leitgeb 
(Sitzber. Akad, Wiss. Wien, lxxx., 1880, page 201), of the action of 
light. The archegones are found exclusively (except in Marattiaceas) on 
the under side of the cushion. Rhizoids are produced in large numbers 
on the under side of another part of the cushion ; the antherids also on 
the under side among the rhizoids, or less often on the margin. In 
Gy mnogramme leptophylla (Desv,) the prothallium is many lobed, and 
the archegones and antherids are produced on separate conical tuber- 
like outgrowths from its under side, which penetrate into the soil, 
where they are perennial, and may give birth by budding to new pro¬ 
thallia, while the sporophyte generation is annual. The prothalhum is 
occasionally, in the Ilymenophyllaceas, reduced to a single row of cells 
terminating in an antheiid, or even to a single cell. Campbell has 
detected continuity of protoplasm in the cells of the prothallium of 
Struthiopteris germanica (L.). In the Osmundaceae the prothallium 
springs directly from the spore without any intermediate protoneme, a 
plate of cells being formed on germination by longitudinal and trans¬ 
verse divisions ; the first rhizoid is formed out of a posterior cell. The 
ribbon-shaped prothallium of Osmunda (L.) is characterised by the 
presence of a midrib composed of several layers of cells running along 
its whole length. The archegones are produced on the under surface 
on this midrib ; the antherids either on the margin or on the under 
surface with the exception of the midrib. An approach towards a 
higher type of organisation is indicated by the tendency of the pro- 
thallium to become dioecious in the Osmundaceaj, and in Struthiopteris 
(L.). All the spores from the same sporange sometimes produce male 
prothallia — i.e., such as bear antherids only, the archegones being pro¬ 
duced later, and in smal’er numbers, on female prothallia ; or the same 
prothallium may produce first antherids and subsequently archegones, 
when it may be termed proterandrous, This is remarkably the case 
also in Gymnogramme. In Cystopteris fragilis (Bernh.) (Polypodiaceffi) 
Campbell states that there are two kinds of prothallium, a smaller mala? 
Fig. 19. 
Germlnst'on of prolhallinm of Ferp.wlih exospore still attached, a, b, Dicksonl® 
antarctiea, ( x 240); c,d, Aspiuiuiu Filix-mas,Sw. (x 120). (After Luerssen.) 
and a larger hermaphrodite. The prothallium of Ferns is sometimes' 
propagated vegetatively by the production of adventitious shoots from, 
single marginal cell*, which become detached and form independent 
prothallia. This takes place especially in Hymenophyllacem and in 
Osmunda, but occurs also in Polypodiaceae, abundantly in Gymno¬ 
gramme (see Cramer, Denkschr. Schweiz. Naturf. Gesell., 1880). The- 
prothallium of Vittaria (Sm.) produces peculiar stalked bulbils. 
“ The antherids of Ferns are small papilliform projections on the 
under side or margin of the prothallium (very rarely on the upper side), 
produced amongst the rhizoids, and of similar origin— i.e., from a single 
superficial cell ; in the Hymenophyllacete they are produced also on 
the protonemal filaments. The protuberance becomes separated by a. 
septum from the parent superficial cell, and then sometimes divides at 
once into the parent-cells of the antherozoids. But more often the 
I apilla divides first of all into a central cell surrounded by a single- 
layer of peripheral cells. These last are barren, but contain chlorophyll ; 
while the central cell divides still further, each derivative nearly cubical 
cell then producing a flat spirally coiled antherozoid contained within a 
vesicle, or ‘ special parent-cell.’ In no case is the number of anthero¬ 
zoids produced by a single antherid very considerable. The function of 
the peripheral cells appears to be to absorb water violently when the 
antherid is mature, in consequence of which they swell up considerably 
