g4. THE PLANT WORLD. 



terest. As was said in the initial number: "What has interested and 

 instructed you may interest and aid others." Open the pages of your 

 note-books and give your botanical friends the benefit. 



NOTES A/ND NEWS, 



According to Dr. J. C. Arthur (Indiana State Report for 1896), 

 formalin appears to be a satisfactory germicide for the prevention of 

 potato scab. 



Mr. J. G. Smith has just presented to the National Herbarium a 

 collection of 142 drawings, chiefly of the achenia of Sagittaria. They 

 are either small sketches or full-page drawings and were made by Mr. 

 Smith while preparing his monograph on this genus published in the 

 report of the Missouri Botanical Garden for 1895. These are to be 

 mounted on the standard sized herbarium sheets and kept with the 

 herbarium specimens of Sagittaria. A label giving the above data 

 has been prepared to accompany each drawing. — -/. N. Rose, U. S. 

 National Museum, Washington, D. C. 



According to Dr. Jacob Schneck of Mt. Carmel, 111., as recorded 

 in the January number of the Botanical Gazette, the Louisiana Naked 

 Broomrape {Aphyllon Ludovicianiini) is in that vicinity always found 

 attached to the roots of the Great Rag- Weed {Ambrosia trifida). 

 " The roots given out by the host, which connect the two plants are 

 at first small, so that it is almost impossible to trace them to their 

 destination. But they steadily increase in size, until they are often 

 as large as a wheat straw by the time the parasite has run its course, 

 which is usually about the last of September. " 



Mr. W. R. Dodson, of Baton Rouge, La., describes in the January 

 number of the Botanical Gazette, the curious production of aerial 

 tubers in the common potato. He says: " The plant had no well 

 developed underground tubers, but the stem above ground had de- 

 veloped on it upwards of fifty well formed tubers, varying in size 

 from a half inch to two inches in diameter. The tubers were located in 

 the axils of normal leaves; in some instances there was only one tuber 

 in the axil of the leaf, in others there were more, and in one case there 

 were five. These tubers were of the shape and size of those ordinarily 

 formed underground, but in many instances the leaf -scale of the normal 

 potato was here developed into a large foliage leaf, which did not 

 differ from the normal leaf of the stem." The tubers were planted 

 the following spring, but were lost before coming to maturity. They 

 seemed to be the same as the ordinary form. 



