748 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Hampole Wood, near Hutton Pagnall, in 1050. James Bolton's 

 " History of Fungnsses growing about Halifax " receives special atten- 

 tion. There follows an account of all the different fungologists, writers, 

 or collectors connected with Yorkshire, which includes the names of nearly 

 all the British workers in this field, as they each seem to have joined in 

 the Yorkshire forays at one time or another. 



Diseases of Plants.* — M. C. Potter reports on " deaf-ear " of barley, 

 a disease in which the ears of the cereal are deficient, or almost empty. 

 He has proved that this is due to the presence of the fungus Helmin- 

 thosporium, which also causes stripe-disease of the leaves. The conidia 

 of the fungus find a lodgment in the chaff inclosing the grain, and 

 on germination of the seed the fungus germinates also and grows in 

 the tissue of the host, in the same way as Smut (Ustilago). Cleaning 

 the grain is recommended to destroy the conidia, either by hot-water 

 treatment or by the use of chemicals. Low temperature at the time of 

 sowing favours the growth of the fungus. 



Transactions of the British Mycological Society.! — These form 

 a record of the work done during the year by the society through its 

 members, the account of the annual foray being the first item. The 

 members met at Newcastle in October, and made a series of excursions 

 to places in the neighbourhood that offered good ground for their 

 particular harvest. An account of these excursions is given, and a list 

 of the fungi collected, two being new to the British flora, Plowright 

 publishes an account of a case of poisoning at Ipswich, due to the eating 

 of Amanita phalloides, a very poisonous species. M. C. Cooke furnishes 

 a reply to Boudier's criticism of his " illustrations " : some of the state- 

 ments Cooke accepts or explains ; others he rejects. D. A. Cotton con- 

 tinues his notes on British Clavarire : for C. vermicular is he substi- 

 tutes the name C. fragiiis as having a prior claim, and he finds that 

 G. rufa must be deleted from the flora as being only a synonym of 

 C. incequalis. A list of new or rare British fungi is prepared by 

 A. Lorrain Smith and Carleton Rea, and contains many species new to 

 Britain, published in other journals or recorded here for the first time. 

 It also contains a number new to science. They are well illustrated by 

 one uncoloured and two coloured plates. The presidential address by 

 A. Lorrain Smith gives an historical account of microfungi, especially 

 in this country, from the earliest drawings and observations by Hooke 

 in his Micrographia (1677) down to the present time. Hooke's' illustra- 

 tions of the two species noted by him are reproduced by photography. 



Case of Poisoning by Amanita junquillea.J — J. Jeanmaire de- 

 scribes his own experiences in collecting and eating various species of 

 fungi, which affected more or less the persons who ate of them. He 

 found that A. junquillea, usually an edible fungus, was occasionally 

 harmful, though not seriously so. The fungi were collected after heavy 

 rains in the month of May. 



* Newcastle, 1908, 8 pp. (1 pi.) 



t Worcester : E. Baylis and Son (1908) iii. pt. 1, 46 pp. (4 pis.). 



j Bull. Soc. Mycol. France, xxiv. (1908) pp. 17S-81. 



