132 abstracts: botany 



Oligocene or Eocene, and of various parts of the Miocene upon each other ; 

 (6) the occurrence of the principal orogenic movements of Cenozoic time 

 in four different periods — at the beginning of the Eocene, in the late 

 Eocene or Oligocene, in the early middle Miocene, and in the late Plio- 

 cene or early Quaternary. 



The evidence as to the origin of the petroleum from minute marine 

 organisms such as diatoms and foraminifera amounts almost to proof. 

 There are two distinct oils in the Coalinga district, one a paraffin oil 

 that comes from organic shale in the Cretaceous and another an asphalt 

 oil almost certainly derived from the diatomaceous Eocene or Oligocene 

 shale. The presence of oil in association with these shales wherever they 

 are present, and its unfailing absence where they are lacking is the most 

 striking of the facts leading to the conclusion that they were the original 

 source of the oil. R. Anderson. 



BOTANY. — Experiments in bhteberry culture. Frederick V. Coville. 

 Bulletin 193, Bureau of Plant Industry, Department of Agricul- 

 ture. Pp. 100, pis. 18, figs. 31. 1910. 



As a result of four years' experimentation with the swamp or high- 

 bush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) , sometimes objectionably 

 called huckleberry, it has been found that these plants thrive only in 

 acid soils. They fail to grow satisfactorily in a rich garden soil of the 

 ordinary type, in a soil made sweet by lime, in a thoroly decomposed 

 leafmold such as has a neutral reaction, or in a nutrient solution with 

 alkaline reaction. They require an acid nutrient solution or an acid 

 medium of some sort, thriving especially in bog peat or in the acid leaf 

 litter of sandy pine or oak woods. 



This type of upland leaf deposit, in which decomposition is retarded 

 for many years, is regarded as essentially peat and in distinction from 

 bog peat is called upland peat. An upland peat is described as a non- 

 paludose deposit of organic matter, chiefly leaves, in a condition of sus- 

 pended and imperfect decomposition and still showing its original leaf 

 structure, the suspension of decomposition being due to the develop- 

 ment and maintenance of an acid condition which is inimical to the 

 growth of the micro-organisms of decay. The use of the name "leaf- 

 mold," sometimes applied to this upland peat, should be restricted to 

 the advanced stages in the decomposition of leaves, in which leaf struc- 

 ture has disappeared. Typical leafmold is neutral or alkaline in reac- 

 tion, a fundamentally important characteristic. 



The rootlets of healthy plants of the swamp blueberry are inhabited 



