NOTES AND COMMENT 



A recently issued Farmer's Bulletin of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture (No. 962) gives an extended account of the velvet bean, which has 

 rapidly sprung into a place of great importance as a forage plant in the 

 Gulf states. It is similar to the running varieties of cow peas but of 

 coarser habit, and the several cultivated strains are derived from 

 Mucima utilis, while the common name alludes to the extremely hairy 

 pod. After fifteen yeai-s of limited cultivation in Florida it is now 

 grown extensively in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi and to some 

 extent in the adjacent states, the extension of its cultivation being due 

 to the development of early-ripening strains. The crop of 1916 was 

 four times as great as that of 1915, and in 1917 the total crop was 

 again quadrupled, amounting to about five million acres. The yield 

 ranges from two to four tons per acre, or more, and the vines and beans 

 are mixed with corn stalks to form an ensilage which has proved to be 

 so valuable as to serve as a great stimulus to stock growing in the 

 southeastern states. In addition to the publication mentioned there 

 is further information on the velvet bean, particularly on its feeding 

 value, in Bulletins 104, 192 and 198 of the Alabama Experiment Station. 



The seventeenth volume of the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club 

 is devoted to the papers that were presented at the Semi-Centennial 

 Anniversary of the Club on October 18, 19 and 20, 1917. An historical 

 sketch of the Club and the reminiscences of several of its long-standing 

 members open the volume, followed by twenty-seven scientific papers. 

 Among the longer papers may be mentioned: The Trimorphism and 

 Insect Visitors of Pontederia, by Tracy E. Hazen; Statistical Studies 

 in Cichorium, by A. B. Stout and Helene M. Boas; the Osmotic Con- 

 centration of Tissue Fluids of Desert Loranthaceae, by J. Arthur 

 Harris; The Vegetation of the Hempstead Plains, by Roland M. Har- 

 per; The Uredinales of Cuba, bj^ J. C. Arthur and J. R. Johnston; and 

 The Evolution of Cell Types and Contact Pressure Responses in 

 Pediastrum, by R. A. Harper. 



Professor C. Conzatti has published an illustrated paper on the vege- 

 tation and flora of the southern coast of Oaxaca, in the Boletin de la 



189 



