BOTANY. 315 



ing plants of the same variety, his conclusion being that the crossing is 

 highly favorable. 



DISEASES OF PLANTS. 



The coffee-leaf disease produced by HemUeia vastatrix is described 

 and illustrated in an article by E. Abbay in the Journ. Linn. Soc. In 

 Fungi FomicoU, Von Thuemen gives a summary of the fungi which at- 

 tack the common fruit trees. A disease attacking seedling beech plants; 

 supposed to be caused b^^ Fhytophthora Fagi, and the distortions of spru- 

 ces produced by JSi'ectria cucurhitula are described by Ilartig in the Forst- 

 wiss. Ceutralblatt. Reinke and Berthold describe the manner in 

 which potatoes are decomposed by the action of fungi in the proceedings 

 of the botanical laboratory in Gottingen, and Thomas describes a large 

 number of galls produced in plants by difterent insects, in the Zeitschrift 

 fiir die gesammten Naturwissenschaften. A general treatise on Diseases 

 of cultivated plants lyroduced hy Fungi by Winter has appeared from 

 the press of Scholze, in Leipsic. The appearance in France of the onion 

 smut, Urocystis Cepulw, well known in some parts of the United States, 

 has been recorded by Cornu, and the same botanist published several 

 communications on the disease of the vine known as anthracose, or, as it 

 is frequently called, anthrachnose. Pianchon and Cornu do not agree 

 with regard to the fungus producing the disease in question, the former 

 thinking the fungus to be Sphaceloma ampelinum Be Bary, and the 

 latter, Fhoma uvicola Berk, and Curt. Under the title of Ampelomiceti 

 Italici, Spegazzini has continued his account of the fungi attacking 

 grapes in the Kivista della viticultura. In Die Foclcen des Weinstockes 

 Yon Thuemen gives his observatious on Glcosporium ampelophagum, a 

 fungus which attacks gTax)es. 



THALLOPHTTES. 



Algcc. — Of papers relating to the algce of the United States but 

 little can be said. The Bull. Torrey Club contains some new fresh-water 

 species by Wolle, and the Am. Xaturalist contains a preliminary report 

 by Farlow on algre collected by Prof. A. S. Packard in the Great Salt 

 Lake. Nor have works on algte in foreign countries been as numerous 

 as usual. The second part of Cohn's Kryptogamen Flora von Schlesieu 

 contains the algoe elaborated by Kirchner, and the Xuovo Giorn. Bot. 

 Ital. contains a paper by Borzi on the Morphology and Biology of the 

 Fhycochromacew. Kjellman, in a short paper, illustrated by a chart, 

 gives an account of the distribution of algoe by regions on the Skager- 

 Rack. Prof. E. P. Wright has two illustrated papers in the Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Irish Academy : On the cell structnre of Griffithsia 

 setacea and on the development of its antheridia and tetraspores, and On 

 the so-called Siphons and on the development of the tetraspores in Polif' 

 siphonia. The Trans. Linn. Soc. contains an account, by D. D. Cunning- 

 ham, of a curious new genus, the single species of which, Mycoidea 



