MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 153 



Cornelius Vanderbilt, President; Andrew Carnegie, Vice- 

 President; J. Pierpont Morgan, Treasurer; N. L. Britton, 

 Secretary. Prof. L. M. Underwood of the Alabama Poly- 

 technic Institute will succeed Dr. Britton as Professor of 

 Botany in Columbia University. The Herbarium and Botan- 

 ical Library of the University are to be deposited at the 

 Garden. 



The APPLICATION of color-photography to plant-portraiture 

 has recently been attempted with promising success by the 

 horticultural journal Le Jar din, ^hiah. published in its issue 

 for May 5 a photographic illustration in colors of Cyj)ri- 

 pediiim callosum. 



Me. W. R. Shaw, of Stanford University, has recently 

 (Bot. Gaz., June, 1894) given us an account of his study of 

 the sexual phase in the Coast Redwood, Sequoia semper- 

 virens. The most important facts brought out are that the 

 pollen-tubes do not penetrate the sporangium immediately in 

 the neighborhood of the micropyle but in the upper fourth 

 of the sporangium (which suggests a resemblance to chalazo- 

 gamic types) and that the upper fourth or fifth of the 

 embryo-sac becomes attenuated into a suspensor-like organ. 

 As a general result of his work on the sporangia and 

 prothallia the author confirms the opinion that the Taxo- 

 dine<© are a most primitive group of modern ConifersB. Mr. 

 Shaw has not yet completed his investigation of the develop- 

 ment of the archegonia. 



The MOST recent issues of Mr. C. G. Lloyd's Photogravures 

 of American Fungi are Nos. 9 and 10, which represent 

 Polyporus Berkeleyi. 



Prof. J. D. Whitney, Sturgis-Hooper Professor of Geology 

 in Harvard University, died Aug. 19, 1896, in New Hamp- 

 shire. Professor Whitney was the chief of the California 

 Geological Survey from 1860, until the survey was discon- 

 tinued. Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the United States, 

 was named in his honor. 



