NOTES AND NEWS. 121 



A Chicago paper of recent date contains an article, under the 

 caption of " Real Antique Oak " recounting the discovery of a buried 

 forest under the streets of that city. It is described as of glacial ori- 

 gin and embraces walnut, willow, beech, etc , beside the oak. There 

 is nothing very remarkable about this, for such buried trunks or fossils 

 are known in many places, but the interesting point is the exactness 

 with which the conditions attending the entombment and the date at 

 which it took place, were given by the so-called ' geologist ' who fur- 

 nished the interview. Thus the date is fixed at just 7,000 ago, and it 

 further appears "that some frightful cyclone bent and laid low the 

 trees at first. The iron fibre is bent and twisted in nearly all of them 

 at one particular spot in the trunk." And again "this forest was the 

 first growth after the glacial period." Of course these statements are 

 perfectly absurd, but they are c[iiite in line with much newspaper 

 science. To be sensational, irrespective of the facts, seems the sole end 

 of such writing. When the public cease to be supplied with pseudo- 

 science of this type, if such time ever does come, civilization will have 

 made a distinct and positive advance. 



NOTES f\m NEV5. . 



Mrs. Antoinette Eno Wood has recently contributed $5,000 to the 

 endowment fund of the New York Botanical Garden. The total paid 

 subscriptions to this fund now aggregate 1270,950. 



Crimiin finibriatuliun and its allies is the subject of an interesting 

 article in The Garden for February nth. It includes a list of the 

 species known to be in cultivation, with short descriptions of the 

 handsome flowers. There is a colored plate of C. fimbriatiihiin. 



The report of Prof. Charles H. Peck, as botanist of the State of 

 New York, covering the year 1897, has just been received. Besides 

 giving a list of plants added to the State collection during the year, 

 it contains descriptions of a large number of new fleshy fungi, a group 

 in which the author is a well-known authority. It is accompanied by 

 an atlas containing nine beautifully colored quarto plates, on which 

 many of the fungi are depicted. Of especial interest to lovers of trees 

 is the description of a new Spruce {Picea brevifolid) from the Adiron- 

 dack Mountains. It is a small tree, scarcely more than twenty or 

 thirty feet high, and is closely allied to the Black Spruce {P. Mariana). 

 It has usually glaucous leaves only 2 to 5 lines long, cones 8 to 12 lines 

 long, and very small seeds about i line long with a wing 2 lines long. 

 It is illustrated by a colored plate. 



