ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 327 



extending over a wide range of territory. The only alternate hosts for 

 this Uredine, so far as known, are Aster and Solidago. New hosts have 

 also been discovered by inoculation methods for Coleosporivm delkatnJum 

 and for C. mconspieunm ; the latter has been collected for tiie first 

 time on the needles of Finns echinata. 



J. C. Arthur * publishes a systematic account of the Urediuere of 

 Porto Rico, based mainly on collections of H. H. Whetzel and E. W. 

 Olive. There were 383 numbered collections, which represented 12^ 

 species which have been duly listed and described. Most of the grass 

 and sedge rusts in the island reproduce by uredospores alone. There 

 was material enough in the collection to solve several problems of 

 relationship and to suggest new relationships requiring further proof. 

 One new genus, OUvea, was discovered in the family Melampsoracete ; 

 the uredosori expand from a minute sub-cuticular mycelium to a globose 

 mass of strongly-incurved paraphyses united at the base ; the spores 

 are borne on pedicels and are obovate, stellately angular, and echinulate. 

 An index of the species is added. 



Ellsworth Bethel f has experimented with Puccinia subnitens, 

 a common rust on Disfichlis spicata. The gecidia had been proved 

 as growing on several different hosts, and Bethel now publishes results 

 of his inoculations proving that the aecidia grow on twenty-two species 

 in six families and fifteen genera. He gives a list of these, and suggests 

 that others may yet be added. 



W. A. McOubbin | has studied particularly the life-cycle of 

 Cronartium ribkola on white pine, and has determined definitely the 

 time required for its full development. He summarizes it thus: — 

 Eirst season, infection in summer and autumn ; second season, dormant 

 period; third season, swelling stage ; fourth season, formation of fecidia. 

 There is evidence, he finds, that the swelling stage may be prolonged 

 during two seasons. The course of the disease thus involves five 

 seasons, and, though it may mature in four years, it may be generally 

 considered a five-year cycle. 



New Melanospora.§ — Marcel Mirande has maintained a pure 

 culture of this fungus, obtained from spores collected on green plants. 

 He has concluded from his examination that the species is new, and 

 gives the name M. mattiroliana. He obtained not only perithecia and 

 ascospores, but the conidial stage, belonging to the genus Spicaria. This 

 latter genus of Hyphomycetes has never before been found as an integral 

 part of Melanospora fructification, but in this instance perithecia and 

 conidiophores arise on the same mycelium. 



Harmful Agarics. |1 — J. Chiffiot reports the somewhat interesting: 

 case of a poison occurring in Coprinus aUamentarius, which induced 



* Mycologia, ix. (1917) pp. 55-104. 

 t Phytopathology, vii. (1917) pp. 92-4. 

 X Phytopathology, vii. (1917) pp. 95-100. 

 § Bull. Soc. Mycol. France, xxxii. (1916) pp. 64-73 (3 figs.). 

 Il Bull. Soc. Mycol. France, xxxii. (1916) p. 63. 



