ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 291 



Lichens. 



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



American Lichenology.* — H. E. Hasse supplies descriptions and 

 notes of new species and new records of various lichens in Southern 

 ( 'alifornia. He has found Lecanora lacustris on rocks which are only 

 inundated during the brief rainy season of that country. Two are new 

 species of Rinodina determined by A. Zahlbruckner. 



Lincoln W. Riddle t gives the description of an American species of 

 Getraria determined by Tuckerman as G. pallidula, but till now unpub 

 lished. It is allied to C. platyphylla and to C. juniperina : from the 

 latter it differs in the white medulla and the globose spores. Riddle 

 suggests that according to Zahlbruckner's classification in the " Pflan- 

 zenfamilien " of Engier and Prantl it would be classified under Nephro- 

 mopsis, though the reason for that is not given. 



H. E. Hasse % has published recently a new lichen, Blastema Herrei, 

 which he now recognizes to be identical with Lecanora (Gallopisma) 

 atrosanguinea Merrill. The species is abundant in Vancouver, the 

 type locality. Either generic name is correct according to the classifica- 

 tion adopted. 



Sch.izoph.yt a. 

 Schizomycetes. 



Bacillus Isolated from a Case of Sprue.§— A. Distaso, from 

 examination of the stools of a patient suffering from Sprue, has isolated 

 an organism on Drigalski's medium, which he considers to be the causal 

 organism of the disease. The bacillus in question belongs to the 

 Friedlander and Bacillus lactis serogenes group of bacteria. The organism 

 produces acid and gas in glucose, lactose, raffinose, mannitol, and 

 levulose, but has no action on sacchrose, salicin and dulcitol. It does 

 not possess motility, and produces acid and gas in neutral red agar, while 

 indol appears in a tryptophane medium. An autogenous vaccine pro- 

 duced a marked amelioration of symptoms, leading to complete recovery 

 of the patient. Distaso proposes to name the new bacillus the B. spruse. 



Variations in the Antigen of the Plague Bacillus. || — S. Rowland 

 has demonstrated that the living avirulent cultures used by Strong in 

 the Philippines for human inoculation only possess a slight protective 

 value for guinea-pigs and laboratory rats, when tested against a test 

 lethal dose of 3,000,000 virulent plague organisms from a passed culture 

 (Laboratory strain) that killed DOp.c. of normal rats. Of 2<> guinea-pigs 

 protected with a dose of 10,000 of Strong's organisms, 13 died of plague, 



* Bryologist, xviii. (1915) pp. 22-3. 



t Bryologist, xviii. (1915) pp. 27-8. 



X Bryologist, xviii. (1915) p. 29. 



§ Bull. Soc. Patholog. Exot. (1914) vii. pp. 208-70. 



|| Journ. Hygiene, Plague Suppl. iv. (1915) pp. 750-3 and 759. 



