194 TUMOURS OP EUCALYPTS AND ANGOPHORAS, 



we are interested in, we began a search for records of similar or 

 analogous cases. 



Dr. F. Erwin Smith, in the second volume of his important 

 treatise on " Bacteria in relation to Plant- Diseases " (1911), dis- 

 cusses, in detail, wound-infections (p. 51 ), and also infections 

 through natural openings, grouped as nectarial, waterpore-. 

 stomatal, and lenticellate infections But we failed to find any 

 reference to axillary infections. As we came to know later, 

 axillary infections had not then come under the author's notice. 

 It was with great interest that we unexpectedly met with a 

 paper by Mr Clayton O. Smith, of California, in which he not 

 only mentions the possibility of axillary infection in the axils of 

 the cotyledons, in stone-fruits, but he gives particulars about the 

 axillary nodules of some Eucalypt seedlings which came under 

 his notice. We quote all that the author has to say about these, 

 and about cognate matters, for three reasons. The paper is not 

 contained in the Society's librar}', and we know of only one copy 

 of it in .Sydney. It contains the first satisfactory record known 

 to us of the realisation of the fact, that the stem-nodules are 

 axillary; as well as the only records, that we know of, of the 

 successful inoculation of Austrahan plants, including Eucalypts, 

 from cultures of soil-organisms. It is also of interest to note 

 what an experienced plant-pathologist thought of the stem- 

 nodules. Mr. Clayton Smith does not mention the fusion of tlie 

 axillary knots, or that they had shoots, or that they incorporated 

 roots. E. tereticornis is the only species mentioned, and seed- 

 lings of this species are sometimes more or less refractory. It 

 may be, therefore, that with only limited macerial available, and 

 without Australian experience of Eucalypts to guide him, he 

 may have unknowingly experimented with seedlings that were 

 not as satisfactory for the purpose as others might have been. 



"Further Proof of the Cause and Infectiousness of Crown 

 Gall.' By Clayton O. Smith. Univ. Cal. Publications, College 

 of Agric, Agric. Experim. Station Bulletin No.235 (Dec. 191*2). 

 "Bacterial Kature of [the] Disease" (p. 534).— There is now 

 abundant proof, that these knots [Crown-Gall on the 30 Hosts 

 enumerated] are caused by a bacterial organism that enters the 



