514 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



found the tissue studded with large spherical vesicles of a yellowish colour, 

 filled with oily contents. These vesicles form a more or less regular 

 series parallel with the substratum. No vesicles were found in G. granu- 

 losa. 



Lists of fungi, new or rare in Britain, are contributed by A. Lorrain 

 Smith and Carleton Eea. They sum up the systematic discoveries of 

 the year, and keep their readers in touch with British work. Each list 

 contains one species new to science. The rare species of the larger 

 fungi are illustrated in three coloured plates drawn by E. A. Rea. 



Plant Diseases in the Tropics.* — G. Delacroix has published a 

 volume dealing with the maladies to which cultivated plants are subject 

 in warm countries. He treats these under two headings, non-parasitic 

 and parasitic. Under the first of these are described various abnormali- 

 ties, and especially gummosis, which is due to different causes. The 

 parasitic diseases are discussed under four groups : Bacteria, Fungi, Alga?, 

 and Phanerogams. Descriptions of parasitic fungi occupy most of the 

 book, especially the parasites of coffee, tea, cocoa, and sugar-cane. The 

 latter plant suffers also from Nematodes, of which an account is given. 

 The work was interrupted by tha death of the author ; it has been taken 

 up and finished by Andre Maublanc. 



Diseases of Plants. — Fr. Bubakf describes a new fungus, Thyro- 

 coccum SiraTcoffi, which he found infesting and damaging the branches 

 of the mulberry; when seedling trees are attacked they are completely 

 destroyed. The fungus, one of the Tubercularieas, forms at first small 

 pustules under the bark, which produce muriform brown spores when the 

 fungus has spread to the surface. The mycelium penetrates the cortex 

 and the host. 



Stephanie Herzfeld \ has discovered a new species of Taphrina on 

 Polystichum Lonchitis. It is noteworthy that the new species has no 

 stalk-cell to the ascus, and forms hyphse which penetrate the tissue of the 

 host. 



C. W. Edgerton § describes the more frequent diseases of sugar-cane ; 

 the most widely-spread is a red decay caused by the fungus Colletotrichum 

 falcatum. It fructifies very rarely. The nodes are the chief point of 

 attack, and in the later stages the leaves wither and decay. Plants 

 attacked lose in sugar-content. Certain varieties of sugar-cane are 

 immune to the disease, and the cultivation of these is recommended. 

 Another disease of the cane — which has an odour of pine-apple, and is 

 called pine-apple disease — is due to the fungus Thielaviopsis ethaceticus, 

 the mycelium of which grows through the entire stem. Treatment with 

 Bordeaux mixture hinders the disease. A root disease due to Marasmius 

 plicatus is also described. 



* Maladies des Plantes cultivees dans les pays chauds. Paris : 1911, ix. and 

 595 pp. (70 text-pis.). 



t Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesell., xxviii. (1911) pp. 533-7 (1 pi.). 



t Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr., Ix. (1910) pp. 249-54 (8 figs.). See also Centralbl. 

 Bakt., xxix. (1911) p. 88. 



§ Agric. Exp. Stat. Louisiana State Univ. Bull. No. 120 (1910). See also 

 Centralbl. Bakt., xxix. (1911) pp. 94-5. 



