532 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



fruits. The disease is of fungus orioin. and the point of attack seems 

 to be the seeds, which are greatly cnhirged. The fungus, \\hich is 

 closely allied to Glceosporium, was descrii)ed as a new genus. Sper- 

 matomyces, the species name mori. being given to it. 



H. von Schrenk presented a paper on the production of wart-like 

 intumescences as a result of spraying with various fungicides. In the 

 greenhouses at the Missouri Botanic Gardens in St. Louis the cauli- 

 flower plants were attacked by Peronospora parasitica in an epidemic 

 form. In order to protect the plants various fungicides were sprayed 

 upon them and as a result the lower sides of the leaves became covered 

 with large wart-like growths. These were formed by the elongation 

 of the cells of the palisade parenchyma. This peculiar condition is 

 supposed to have been caused ])y the stinmlating action of the copper 

 salts in the fungicides. 



The same speaker discussed the cause of ''blue timber.'' This is said 

 to be a serious afi'ection of various timbers, especially of pine, hem- 

 lock, and spruce, and is quite different from the green color sometimes 

 noted in hard woods. There appears to be no deposition of crystals of 

 coloring matter in this disease, and the color is attributed to the mass- 

 ing of the hyphcT? of a fungus which is always present in the medullary 

 rays of the blue wood. The fungus is said to fructify on wood cut 

 from the tree, but not on the living tree. 



A report was made before the section of botany by D. T. MacDou- 

 gal on The Desert Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution. The ])oard 

 of trustees of the Carnegie Institution has granted $8,000 for the 

 establishment and maintenance during 1902-3 of a desert botanical 

 laboratory. F. V. Coville and D. T. MacDougal have been appointed 

 b}" the board an advisory committee to have charge of the location 

 and management of the laboratory. The proposed laboratory is 

 designed for the thorough study of the physiological and morpholog- 

 ical features of plants occurring in desert conditions, with particular 

 reference to the relation of water, light, temperature, and other spe- 

 cial factors to their development. In the discussion which followed 

 the announcement of this grant a number of desirable localities were 

 suggested as possible sites for the laboratory, the consensus of opinion 

 favoring Tucson, Ariz., or that vicinity. 



BACTERIOLOGY. 



The Society of American Bacteriologists held three very full ses- 

 sions, Deceml)er 30 and 31, which were presided over by H. W. Conn. 

 Nearly half the pa^jers bore on agricultural bacteriology, and these 

 included some of the most important read at the meeting. 



In a pai^er on Oligonitrophilic Bacteria of the Soils, F. D. Chester 

 explained that the oligonitrophilic bacteria are those which grow in 

 nitrogen-free or nitrogen-poor media, and which possess the power of 



