222 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Bory de Saint- Vincent.* — C. Sauvageau gives an account of the 

 life of J. B. Bory de Saint- Vincent (born 1778, died 1846), mainly 

 founded on the Correspondence of Bory with Leon Dufour, recently 

 published by P. Lauzun.j Bory's chequered existence is sketched out : 

 His voyage in 1799 to Madeira, the Canaries, Cape Verde Islands, 

 Mauritius and Bourbon ; his long service in the Napoleonic armies in 

 France, Germany, Austria, Poland ; his visits to distinguished naturalists 

 in those countries ; his service in the Peninsular War ; the collections 

 which he always made during the campaigns : his enforced residence 

 abroad after Waterloo ; his pardon and return to France in 1820 ; his 

 encyclopaedic and other writings ; his imprisonment for debt in Sainte- 

 Pelagie from time to time — periods of great botanical and literary 

 activity. After his death his Algae were purchased by Thuret, in whose 

 herbarium they remain. 



Fungi. 



(By A. Lorbain Smith, P.L.S.) 



Spread of Phytophthora infestans, with special reference to 

 Hibernating Mycelium.} — A. H. Cockayne states that the disease of 

 potatoes, due to this fungus, was first reported some twelve years ago in 

 New Zealand, and ascribes its occurrence to the importation of potatoes 

 in which the mycelium of Phytophthora was present. A slice of 

 potato in which the mycelium has been demonstrated, and which is kept 

 moist, develops immediately hyphae and conidiophores, showing, as 

 Cockayne points out, that the fungus is not truly in a dormant 

 condition, but on the border line between active and hibernating 

 mycelium ; it can thus become active without further growth of the 

 host-plant. Cockayne also draws attention to the fact that the 

 mycelium in the tuber, when growth begins, is negatively geotropic and 

 makes its way to the stalk and leaves ; but when infection takes place 

 from spores on the leaves, it is positively geotropic, and passes down to 

 the developing tubers to which it is probably attracted by the store of 

 food material. 



Winter Stage of Sclerotinia fructigena.§ — J. B. Dandeno tried to 

 cultivate the Peziza form of this fungus from plums attacked by the 

 conidial stage Monilia fructigena. It was found that plums on the top 

 of the soil dried up, or were destroyed by rain, etc., and those that were 

 entirely buried rotted away. The fruiting stage, however, was produced 

 abundantly on plums that were only partially buried. -This suggested 

 a sure method of destroying the winter stage by ploughing in all the 

 diseased plums in the autumn. The Monilia form may survive the 

 winter, but it would be a clear gain to destroy the alternative stage of 

 the fungus. 



Fraudulent Substitutions for Truffles. || — R. Maire was asked to 

 examine a sample of truffles, and found- that, instead of Tuber 



* Journ. de Bot., xxi. (1908) pp. 198-222. 



t Agen, 1908; 358 pp. (2 portraits). 



t Trans, and Proc. New Zealand Inst., xl. (1907) pp. 316-20. 



§ Tenth Rep. Mich. Acad Sci., 1908, pp. 51-3 (3 figs.). 



11 Bull. Soc. Bot. France, lv. (1908) pp. xxxiv.-vi. (1 fig.). 



