178 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



his contemporaries were often sharp, and naturally excited aversion, and 

 perhaps to this aversion we may refer some of the omission to receive as 

 much credit as might be his due. But he often speaks admiringly of 

 those he had lanced, and it is evident that, unwise in his discourtesy, it 

 was not at any rate engendered in malice. 



But he made species ? Wot long ago I read the introduction to a 

 work in which the author complained that of some hundred or more 

 species he had described, a contemporary had done him the gross injus- 

 tice of not leaving him a dozen! It is no uncommon fault. 



And he was an egotist ? But I have lived to learn that in this re- 

 spect at least "every man has his price." Let us meet in spirit around 

 his unhonored grave in old llonaldson Cemetery, remembering his sacri- 

 fices, grateful for what he did, and tried to do, and not forgetting that 

 we too are but human as was he. — Thomas Meehan. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



It may seem to some that we have departed somewhat from the 

 natural order of things in selecting Dr. Torrey as the subject of the 

 second sketch in our series of "Some N. Am. Botanists;" but we are 

 compelled to publish these sketches, not as we Would; but as we can. 



The American Monthly Microscopical Journal begins the 



new year with S. E. Casino, of Boston, as publisher and every evidence 



of prosperity. When an editor can be relieved from all clerical work his 

 literary work is that much better and we now expect from Mr. Hitch- 

 cock a journal even more entertaining than it has been. 



Professor G. Macloskie, of Princeton, presented at Montreal a 

 paper on "Achenial Hairs and Fibers of Composita?," which now appears 

 illustrated in the Naturalist. The object of his study seems to have 

 been an attempt to discover some additional tribal characters, a thing 

 very acceptable in this large and very homogeneous order. If the char- 

 acters from the achenial hairs, etc., prevail it will necessitate considera- 

 ble readjusting of tribes, "yet the parallelism between the structure of 

 the hairs and the affinities of the groups, as founded on other characters, 

 is singularly complete." 



Dr. L. Errera finds glycogen in the tissues and asci of ascomycetous 



fungi and also in Linum and Solatium. He has established completely 



the identity of the glycogen in Peziza vesiculosa (which he has studied 



most closely) and that of the mammalian liver. When not in too small 

 quantity plant glycogen may be detected by its reaction with iodine, 

 giving a brownish red color which disappears on heating and reappears 

 on cooling. The discovery of the existence of this carbo-hydrate in 

 plants breaks away another of the attempted absolute distinctions be- 

 tween plants and animals. Glycogen seems to perform the same func- 

 tions in both organisms. 



Professor Douglass, II. Campbell, of Ann Arbor, has been 

 showing the development of the male prothallium of Equisetum ar- 

 rettsp. and recommends its use by laboratory students as a plant that is 



