THF PLANT WORLD. 157 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Dr. Hermann von Schrenk has just issued a small bulletin (No. 21 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture) on two destructive fungus diseases 

 of the Red Cedar. They are caused by species of Polyporus, one of 

 which is described as new. 



Dr. Byron D. Halsted has recently issued a valuable little pamphlet 

 (Bulletin 144 of the New Jersey Experiment Station) on live covers 

 for country homes, in which he enumerates and describes the vines that 

 have been found most valuable for covering porches, trellises, etc. 

 The home-like appearance of a house may be greatly enhanced by the 

 planting of a vine or two where it may climb over the porch or side of 

 the house, as can well be seen by a glance at the beautiful pictures of 

 well-known homes in this pamphlet. We would like to see this little 

 report in the hands of every owner of a country home in the land. 



"It is not unlikely that some of the curious alterations in the dis- 

 tribution of forest trees which geologists have recognized," says Pro- 

 fessor N. S. Shaler in the Forester for September, "may have been due 

 to the development in former ages of the Gypsy Moth or other like 

 destructive species of insect. Thus in the early Miocene Tertiary 

 Europe was tenanted by a host of species closely akin to those that 

 now form our admirable American broadleaf forests. Magnolias, the 

 Gums and the Tulip trees were then as well developed in Europe as 

 they are in this country. Suddenly all these species disappeared from 

 the Old World. There is no reason to believe that the change was due to 

 an alteration in climate. There are manv evidences indeed that such 

 was not the case. It is a very reasonal)le conjecture that that altera- 

 tion was brought about l)y the invasion of an insect enemy which may 

 have been the (xypsy Moth." 



