Kryptogamen-Flora von Schlesien

Abstract

THE second volume of the “Cryptogamic Flora of Silesia,” edited by Prof. Ferdinand Cohn, has now been completed in two parts. The first is devoted to the algæ, and the second to the lichens, the former having been worked out by Dr. Oskar Kirchner, while the latter part, on the lichens, is from the pen of Berthold Stein. The algaæ of Silesia are, of course, fresh-water forms, and include a very fair proportion of all the species recognised as natives of Germany. Thus, reckoning the German algæ-flora at 1,688 species, the Silesian flora contains 794, or 47 per cent. Some of these have not yet been found out of Silesia, Kirchner giving a list of 40 species not yet detected elsewhere, and of these a considerable proportion are new species described for the first time in the present flora. Desmideæ, Diatomaceæ, and phycochromaceous forms furnish no less than 600 out of the total of 794 species, most of the others being Protococcoideæ and Confervoideæ, these numbering 88 and 86 species respectively, while the remainder is made up by 11 Florideæ, Batrachospermum and allies, and 6 Siphoneæ. The work may therefore be said chiefly to describe the Desmideæ and other Conjugaæ, 225 in number, the Bacillariaceæ (Diatomaceæ), 195, and the 185 Phycochromaceæ. The hypsometrical distribution of the species is carefully given, according to the plan adopted in the first volume, the whole country being divided into four regions. The first includes all land below the elevation of 150 metres, the second all elevations between 150 and 500 metres, the third from 500 to 1,100 metres, and the fourth from 1,100 to 1,500 metres. No less than 63 species, or 8 per cent, of the total number are met with in all the four regions, these species, however, being usually forms widely distributed in Europe. To the fourth or highest region there belong 16 special species out of a total of 104 in the whole region. The third or second highest district includes 131 species, or 16.5 per cent, of the whole, and of these 20 are special. The great majority of the species belong to the first and second regions, a distribution very different, as we shall presently see, from that of the lichens. The first or lowest region contains 472 species, or 59.5 per cent.; the second 612 species, or 77 per cent., while of these, 116 species are only found in the first, and 219 in the second, region. Lastly, it is found that the two regions together contain no fewer than 613 species not found at all in the higher districts.

Kryptogamen-Flora von Schlesien.

Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Cohn. Zweiter Band, Erste Haelfte: Algen. Bearbeitet von Dr. Oskar Kirchner, und Zweite Haelfte: Flechten. Bearbeitet von Berthold Stein. (Breslau: J. U. Kern, 1878 and 1879.)