NOTES AND COMMENT 195 



better when the pots were left open above, rather than covered with 

 glass or other plates; when left open the superficial layers of the cork 

 become air dry and offer but little opportunity for the growth of fungi 

 on the surface. Seeds of the following plants were tested: maize, 

 wheat, oats, Canary grass (Phalaris), pea, lupine, Windsor bean (Vicia 

 faba), kidney bean (Dolichos), garden nasturtium (Tropaeolum) , mustard, 

 rape, castor bean, squash, cucumber, buckwheat, morning glory, tomato 

 and sunflower. All of them gave excellent results. Several of the 

 larger legumes germinated much better in cork than in sand or moss, 

 doubtless because of the smaller amount of water -held by the cork. 

 When the cork is first used it imparts to the water a dark color, but 

 the soluble material thus made evident has no apparent effect upon the 

 seedlings. — W. E. Maneval. 



Prof. Aven Nelson, of the University of Wyoming, has just prepared 

 a Spring Flora of the Intermountain States (Ginn and Company), a 

 small volume covering a portion of the entire flora of its area for a por- 

 tion of the year. The book will find use in the secondary and high 

 schools of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon. 

 The fact that there is demand for such a book speaks well for the prog- 

 ress of botanical interest in the public schools of a not thickly populated 

 group of states. The "keen and growing interest 'in the plants of the 

 west," to which Professor Nelson alludes, is well worthy of being fos- 

 tered, especially among the boys and girls of the region, from whom a 

 large share of the botanists of the next generation will doubtless be 

 recruited. This interest is also being manifested in the rapidity with 

 which the western states are becoming provided with floras, which will 

 at once be of great service to botanists themselves and a great stimulus 

 to the rising generation to become interested in the classification of 

 plants and, through it, in other departments of botany as well. Cali- 

 fornia has been provided for a number of years with floras of its several 

 diversified portions. Western Texas, Nebraska, Washington, Colorado, 

 Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, and Iowa also possess reasonably com- 

 plete floras, while Kansas and Oklahoma have provisional lists of their 

 plants, not to mention floristic works which cover portions of other states. 

 A flora of New Mexico which has been elaborated by Prof. E. 0. 

 Wooton, formerly of the New Mexico Agricultural College, will shortly 

 be published as a Contribution from the National Herbarium, and a 

 flora of Arizona is now in preparation by Prof. J. J. Thornber, of the 

 University of Arizona. A similar review of works relating to the floras 



