150 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



our own phytopathologists could have written a book of similar 

 scope, at least equally well. On the whole, the translation seems 

 "ood, but it reads like a translation. The translator has in some 

 cases stuck too closely to the original, as, for instance (p. 40), 

 where he says : " In hetercecious rusts it sometimes happens 

 that the BBcidium stage is omitted from the life-history," and 

 (p. 39), where concerning the teleutospores, it is stated that " they 

 consist of more than one cell." 



The Introduction deals with methods of work and aims, 

 followed by a summary of the classification and structure of 

 pests, plant and animal. In the special treatment the pests are 

 arranged according to their hosts, e.g. agricultural pests of cereals. 

 The last chapter, which is concerned with the treatment of plant 

 discuses, is particularly interesting. 



The translator tells us in his Preface that his few additions are 

 in square brackets. The largest addition concerns Ghrysophlyctis 

 endobiotica. The reader is informed that it is a " notifiable 

 disease," whatever that may mean to the beginner, for whom such 

 a book is obviously intended, and also that "the classificatory 

 position is doubtful : Eriksson places it in the Chytridiacese, 

 while others regard it as a Myxomycete." Why Eriksson is 

 specially mentioned we do not know ; we had thought that all 

 systematists regarded Chrysophlyctis as a member of the 

 Chytridiaceae. The use of square brackets seems, however, to 

 have been somewhat of an obsession, as they are freely indulged 

 in where the ordinary round bracket is used in the original. The 

 information (p. 57) that Alternaria solani is an Oomycete might also 

 have been put in square brackets! In the Preface " the low price 

 at which the English edition is issued" is mentioned; but the 

 German edition can be obtained in this country for tenpence, and 

 there seems little reason why the English translation of a five- 

 years-old book should cost more than tw 7 ice as much as the 

 original. j R 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on 20th February, 

 1913, Dr. Stapf showed an abnormal fruit of Acer Pseudo- 

 platanus. The specimen was found near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 

 on September 16th, 1912. There are seven distinct carpels, six 

 of which have perfected seeds. The fruit is apparently composed 

 of two parts, the larger having four carpels, each of which has 

 perfected seeds, and the smaller three carpels, one of which is 

 sterile, though a good wing has been produced. Transverse 

 sections through the pedicel were compared with similar sections 

 made through the pedicel of a normal two-winged fruit. There 

 are Blight differences in structure between the two sets of sections, 

 but nothing to indicate so large an increase in vascular strands as 

 might he expected if two or three flowers had fused together. 

 O. Penzig {Pjlanzen-Tcratologie, vol. i. p. 364) makes the following 



