NOTES AND COMMENT 



The publication of the list of doctorates for 1912 (Science, August 

 2, 1912) renews interest in the matter of the training and direction 

 which a beginner in research may receive in the various schools of botany 

 in America. The analysis of degrees given in 1911 printed in The 

 Plant World for October, 1911, showed that twenty had been con- 

 ferred in botany in that year and that nine others presented results of 

 possible interest to botanists. The title of a thesis does not always 

 give a reliable indication of its scope, but there appear to have been 

 granted thirty-three degrees for botanical work in 1912, while five other 

 titles appear which might concern botanical science in an important 

 manner. Fourteen of the thirty-three are morphological, dealing with 

 developmental, embryological or quantitative aspects of plants; four 

 are taxonomic, descriptive or palaentological, eleven are physiological 

 or genetic studies; two are descriptive ecology with which might be 

 classed a third in comparative anatomy already credited to morphology, 

 and two are pathological. The incidental titles are chiefly bacterio- 

 logical. The full list is as follows: 



Melvin Amos Brannon: The Action of Salton Sea Water on Plant Tissues. 



Sophia Hennion Eckerson: A Physiological and Chemical Stud}' of After-ripening. 



Laura Campbell Gano: The Physiographic Ecology of Northern Florida. 



Stella Mary Hague: A Morphological Study of Diospyros virginiana. 



Ansel Francis Hemenway: The Phloem of Dicotyledons. 



Eugene Franklin McCampbell : The Toxic and Antigenic Properties of Bacterium 



welchii. 

 Lester Whyland Sharp: Spermatogenesis in Equisetum. 

 Anna Morse Starr: Comparative Anatomy of Dune Plants. 

 Bernard Ogilvie Dodge : Methods of Culture and the Morphology of the Archicarp 



in certain species of the Ascobolaceae. 

 Winifred Josephine Robinson: A Taxonomic Study of the Pteridophyta of the 



Hawaiian Islands. 

 Mortier Franklin Barrus: The Bean Anthracnose. 

 Harry Oliver Buckman: Optimum and Excessive Soil Moisture in its effects upon 



the Soil and the Crop. 

 Robert James Evans: Studies in the Variation of Stellaria media as induced by 



Temperature Exposures. 

 Christian Nephi Jensen: Fungous Flora of the Soil. 



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