257 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



sure and force through the minute pore a jet of pollen "directly upon 

 the rear or side of the intruder." Restates that in experimenting 

 a surprising quantity of pollen was thrown by touching the "bellows" 

 with a blunt point. 



Prof. C. E. Bessey is making the Botanical Department of the 

 American Naturalist more valuable than it has been for years. It is 

 kept abreast with the times and botanists get hints of all that is 

 doing in the botanical world. 



The American Microscopical Journal for August contains a 

 useful list of preservative solutions for botanical preparations. It is 

 taken from Brebissonia, reprinted there from an opuscle published in 

 1872 by Messrs. Cornu, Gronland and Rivet. In the same number a 

 few filterings of Croton water in August are shown to yield 24 species 

 of Algas, not to mention numerous Diatoms 



Mr. J. G. Baker has begun a synopsis of the genus Pitcairnia in 

 ^^ Journal of Botany for August. This is one of the largest genera of 

 Bromdiacece., numbering now seventy species. In this first number a 

 key to the species is given and eighteen of them described. 



Dr. Gray gives in the last American Journal of Science a review 

 of the third volume of DeCandoile's Monographice Phaenogamarum. 

 This volume contains over 1000 pages and is mostly devoted to the 

 two orders Commelinacece and Ciictirbitacea. The former is by C. B. 

 Clarke; the latter is the work of Cogniaux, of Belgium. The order 

 Commelinacece contains 307 known species, arranged under 26 genera. 

 The order is chiefly tropical, finding its most northern limits in the 

 Northern United States or British America. Two thirds of the large 

 volume is devoted to Cucurbitacece, an order which had been elabor- 

 ated for the Prodromus by Seringe over fifty years ago. Since that 

 time the material has increased tenfold, and of the 600 species M. 

 Cogniaux describes 219, and has seen all but eight ! Dr. Gray re- 

 marks: "The geographical distribution of a family at once so pecul- 

 iar, so wide-spread and so considerable in numbers and generic di- 

 versity (79 genera and 600 species j, might raise interesting specula- 

 tions. It must be an ancient family; tor the numerous genera, as 

 well as the species, are circumscribed in range, and only six or 

 seven are common to the Old and New World, except as diffused un- 

 der human agency." 



Prof. W. J. Beal sets his students all to work, and the results 

 of their observations form no mean contribution to botanical science. 

 The latest we have noted are recorded m Meehan's Gardener's Month- 

 ly for September. Three students have been trying to answer the 

 quebtion, "Will red clover not visited by bees produce seeds?" The 

 results of the experiments given seem to show that when guarded from 

 bees the heads sometimes set seed, but always in very much diminish- 

 ed quantity. 



Cliapmanilia Mlld Garberia. — There is nothing more difificuJ 

 than to describe a plant so that a person who has never seen it may 



