Of this SciENCi; oi Piani Bac.ti.riology 307 



over the botanical section of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science durinj; the next year. He was " sur- 

 prised " since once before he had been presiding officer when it 

 was " the section of biology. " He suggested to Smith " to select 

 some vital topic of the day and have it the subject of one or more 

 sessions." '" Sexuality of fungi," or any subject important in 

 physiology, was recommended. 



Fifty-six papers were listed, and forty-seven read, at the meeting 

 of Section G which took place at Cambridge the following August 

 22-25. Smith, as secretary, prepared for Science " an important 

 monograph entitlecT, " Botany at the Anniversary Meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science." Such 

 valuable papers as the following were abstracted by the authors 

 and included: Bradley Moore Davis, " The Carposporic Type of 

 Reproduction of the Rhodophyceae "; H. J. Webber, " Origin and 

 Homologies of Blepharoplasts "; H. L. BoUey, "Some Observa- 

 tions bearing upon the Symbiotic Mycoplasm Theory of Grain 

 Rust," including a consideration of Erickson's famous hypothesis; 

 B. D. Halsted, "Starch Distribution as affected by fungi"; 

 Charles Orrin Townsend, " The Effect of an Atmosphere of Ether 

 upon Seeds and Spores"; Rodney Howard True, "The Toxic 

 Action of a Certain Group of Substances "; M. B. Waite, " Life 

 History and Characteristics of the Pear-Blight Bacillus"; S. M. 

 Babcock and H. L. Russell, " The Biology of Cheese Ripening "; 

 and many others. William B. Alwood of the Virginia Agricultural 

 Experiment Station and professor of horticulture and allied sub- 

 jects at Virginia Polytechnic Institute presented two papers, one 

 on " The Leaf-spot Disease of the Apple, Phyllosticta pirina, and 

 Several Unrelated Forms occurring therewith " and one " On the 

 Occurrence of a Yeast Form in the Life Cycle of Sphaeropsis 

 malorum." Since forest pathology represented a branch of science 

 inadequately studied thus far in America. Hermann von Schrenk's 

 " Notes on Some Diseases of Southern Pines " signified a formal 

 recognition of a new type of research in the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriailture. 



Smith reckoned von Schrenk's beginning in 1894-1895 to study 

 fungous diseases of forest trees in the United States as an event 

 of first rank in this nation's research in pathology.'^ Bernhard 



"N. s., 8(202 & 203): 651-660, 690-700, Nov. 11, 18, 1898. 



''*■ Fifty years of pathology, op. cit., 22. Von Schrenk, in conference with the 



