NEWS NOTES AND CURRENT COMMENT. 179 



of the origin and progressive differentiation under cultivation of the 

 many berries of the Rosacese, of the American grapes, which have 

 given rise to eight hundred varieties, and of the American plums, 

 which have yielded more than two hundred cultivated forms. In 

 addition there is much concerning men — the early horticulturists 

 and cultivators, of whom the author writes as fellow-workers. 



The old, old phrase to the effect that of the making of books there 

 is no end, might unguardedly be applied to Professor Bailey alone. 

 Of his numerous volumes and papers, however, we think this book 

 on our native fruits will have for botanists the most abiding interest. 



W. L, J. 



NEWS NOTES AND CURRENT COMMENT. 



Mr. a. a. Heller, of Lancaster, Pa., will start for Porto Rico 

 about January 1. He expects to make a large collection of plants, 

 including all classes, from fungi to flowering plants. 



Dr. E. B. Copeland, of the State Normal School, Chico, 

 California, has, according to the Botanical Gazette, been appointed 

 Instructor in Botany in the University of West Virginia. 



Part 21 of Pitto7iia is devoted entii'ely to the publication of 

 diagnoses 'and of segregates. The genera Gutierrezia, Xanthium, 

 Viola, Caltha, Antennaria, Mertensia, Lappula, figure largely in 

 these pages as recipients of new species, besides many others in a 

 less degree. [Payot, Upham & Co., San Francisco. 50 cents.] 



In the fifteenth annual report of the Bureau of Animal Industry 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, Mr. V. K. Chesuut, in a "Pre- 

 liminary Catalogue of Plants Poisonous to Stock," lists 128 species 

 of the United States flora known to be or suspected of being poison- 

 ous to animals. Delphinium recurvatum Greene falls in the cate- 

 gory of "probably poisonous," but ranchmen of the southern Coast 

 Ranges are said to insist on its virulence. The California Rhodo- 

 dendron is cited as poisonous, and of Sarcobatus vermiculatus 

 Mr. Chesnut says that a correspondent counted as many as 1,000 

 sheep that had been killed by eating the leaves of this plant in 

 New Mexico. 



