REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS. 35 



the Mission of Carrael. In such manner his time was occupied 

 during the summer. 



About the end of August he departed for Yerba Buena^ by sea. 

 From there he crossed to Sausalito, and was the guest of General 

 Vallejo, at San Kafael. He traveled as far north as Sonoma and 

 San Miguel.^ "The face of the country," to quote again from his 

 journal, "is perfectly level towards the bay. Several species of oaks 

 \_Quercus lohata, Q. Douglasii and Q. Kelloggii^ thrive well in the 

 fine black vegetable mould, and are disposed into large irregular 

 clumps, giving the country the appearance of an immense park, 

 enlivened by numerous herds of elks and antelopes." After a visit 

 to Bodega, the traveler returned once more to Monterey. 

 {To he concluded.) 



REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS. 



Contribution toward a Monograph of the Laboidbeniacece. By 

 Roland Thaxter. Memoirs of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, Vol. XII, No, III. 



No worthier or more epoch-making botanical work has ever 

 appeared in America than this superb volume, which opens up for 

 the botanist an almost entirely new chapter. The minute plants ,of 

 which Professor Thaxter treats, present some of the most interesting 

 morphological and phylogenetic problems of plant life. 



The plants with which the monograph deals, are extremely 

 minute fungi, parasitic upon insects, mostly beetles, which for the 

 most part live in damp situations. They are extremely small even 

 for fungi, very few of them reaching the length of a millimeter, while 

 the great majority are decidedly smaller than that. They are 

 attached to the various portions of the outer surface of the insect, 

 many species occurring only upon very limited and definite regions. 

 They would be mistaken by the ordinary observer for bristles or 

 hairs upon the body of the insect itself. The parasitism is sliglit, the 



^San Francisco. 



^Rancho de San Miguel, just above tlie present town of Santa Eosa. 



^The first collection of the Kellogg Oak. 



