NEWS AND NOTES 28 I 



medium by which the difference of turgor on opposite sides 

 of the seedling is interfered with. 



Ostenfeld's experiments with seeds of Potamogeton 

 nataus which had been voided by swans show that their 

 germination is promoted and hastened by their passage 

 through the digestive tract of these birds. He holds the view, 

 however, that the efficiency of birds as distributors of seeds 

 to long distances has been overrated and points out the neces- 

 sity of more definite experimental evidence in this direction. 



NEWS AND NOTES. 



Prof. Francis E. Lloyd has taken up his duties as head 

 of the Department of Botany in the Alabama Polytechnic In- 

 stitute, Auburn, Ala. During the past fifteen months he has 

 been engaged, in co-operation with Professor Whittelsay, of 

 Northwestern University, and Dr. J. E. Kirkwood, late of 

 Syracuse University, in the study of the desert rubber-produc- 

 ing plant, guayule {Parthen'uim argentatiim A. Gray). These 

 gentlemen constituted the personnel of the Department of 

 Inv^estigation of the Continental-Mexican Rubber Company. 

 The Department was recently discontinued as a result of a 

 change of policy on the part of the Company. 



Prof. A. S. Hilclicock, Agrostologist of the Department 

 of ^Agriculture, spent two days in Tucson on his return from 

 the Pacific coast, where he has been engaged in field work 

 since June. Professor Hitchcock has been collecting grasses 

 in all the higher mountain ranges of California and Oregon, 

 and made ascent of Mt. Whitney and Mt. Shasta. He will 

 visit several localities in northern Mexico before returning 

 to Washington. 



Mr. Joseph H. Painter, assistant in the United States 

 National Herbarium, was drowned in the rapids of the 

 Potomac, December 6, 1908, near the headquarters of the 

 Washington Biologists' Held Club of which he was a mem- 



