252 NOTES AND COMMENT 



with the ordinary pistil, but bore a normal size relation with the peri- 

 anth of the aberrant flower in which it had been developed. The com- 

 mon phenomenon of bulblet formation in the inflorescence of species 

 of Allium presents a fundamentally similar problem. In the present 

 case the interest lies in the fact that a stamen primordium is concerned 

 and that merely a single flower is reproduced and not the entire plant, 

 as in bulblet formation. 



No theories are here offered in regard to the phenomenon. It might 

 be suggested, however, that if such a case were a mutation it might 

 give us a hint as to one method, at least, displayed in the evolution of 

 the compound umbel. If this condition involved many of the flowers 

 of an umbel and was accompanied by the disappearance of the pistil 

 and the reduction of the perianth segments to bracts, it is evident that 

 a compound umbel would result. — B. W. Wells. 



The publishing house of Martinus Nijhoff, at The Hague, has re- 

 cently issued the first of the five volumes of a work entitled Enumeratio 

 Systematica Fungorum. This work is a host index of the parasitic 

 fungi of the European flora, and is chiefly due to the labor of the late 

 Professor C. A. J. A. Oudemans. 



