462 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



sum mentioued ; and the rehabilitatiou of the Sacred Tree has yet 

 to be established. 



The Plant World, "a monthly Journal of popular Botany," has 

 just made its appearance at Binghamton, N.Y., under the editor- 

 ship of Dr. F. H, Knowlton, of the National Museum, Washington. 

 The Fern BttlUtin, "an illustrated 16-page quarterly," "the only 

 Journal in the world devoted entirely to Ferns," edited by Mr. 

 Willard N. Clute, is issued from the same place ; this is in its 

 fifth year. 



The fungus causing the sooty mould of orange and other trees 

 in America has beeu determined by Mr. H. J. Webber, in a paper 

 issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, June ITth, 1897, to 

 be a species of Meliola. Mr. D. McAlpiue (Pruc. Linn. Soc. N. S. 

 Wales, 1896, part 4) traces the Australian pest to a hitherto uu- 

 described species, (jajmodium citricolum. The two genera are closely 

 allied in habit ; they differ somewhat in the form of the fruit and 

 spores. The leaves of the plant affected are covered by a thick 

 layer of felted mycelium, which effectively excludes the sunlight 

 from the chlorophyll cells, and checks the development of the 

 plant, and the formation of flower and fruit. The fungus does not 

 penetrate the tissue ; it lives saprophytically on the honey-dew 

 extruded by scale insects, and it has been found that it always 

 follows a visitation of these creatures. Mr. McAlpiue calls attention 

 to the undue destruction of " sugar-loving, brush-tongued parakeets 

 and other birds which formerly abounded so greatly," and which 

 held the insects in check. Similar methods of spraying and 

 fumigating the plants in order to kill insects and mould are re- 

 commended by both gentlemen, and have proved more or less 

 efficacious ; but on the old principle of " like cures like," a fungus, 

 Aschersonia, which preys on the larvae of scale insects, has been 

 utilized in America, and bids fair to reduce their number and the 

 subsequent growth of the mould. Mr. Webber describes some 

 interesting and successful experiments with the scale-fungus, and 

 an allied form is recorded by Mr. McAlpine as having attacked 

 some species of scale insects in Australia. — A. L. S. 



We have received the following from Dr. Wilms, which (we 

 hope) explains itself : — 



" Frederic Wilms, phil. Dr. and Botanist after taking his 

 residence in South- Africa for about 14 years has returned to his 

 home-country with a rich profit of natural-historic Collections. 

 Especially he took care to the floristical exploration of the Transvaal- 

 Republic, and has just given over his first number of collection of 

 the well prepared and richely spend Transvaal-Plants to the Koyal- 

 Botanical Museum of Berlm. The officials of this well known 

 Institut will kindly undertake the determination, and the description 

 of the new specimen will be published by the above Gentlemen in 

 the possibly shortest time in ,,Engler's Botanische Jahrbiicher". 

 The manuscript-names are authentic until to the publication. The 

 Collection Wilms will be edited by the undersigned to all Museum 

 of Botany and also to privates as far as possible. The first centuries 

 shall be delivered to the subscribers already in January 1898. The 



