BOOK-XOTES, XEWS, ETC. 359 



Winchester was the Tomato " ! The Report affords gratifying evidence 

 that the stud}^ of natural history, which seems of late years to have 

 largely disappeared from public schools, still nourishes in at least one 

 of them. 



The Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Nov. 1916- June 1917) 

 contains, besides the usual obituary notices, a " Cartographic Study 

 of the Southern Element in the British Flora," by Dr. Stapf, whose 

 former paper on " The Southern Element in the British Flora " was 

 published in Engler's Botanische Jalirhiicher : it is we think to 

 be regretted that papers of such interest to British botanists shoidd 

 appear in places not readily accessible to most of them. The number 

 also contains an account of the origin of the Hooker Lecture — but 

 not the lecture itself, which was delivered by Prof. Bower — and a list 

 of the published portraits of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, at whose 

 ince23tion the lecture was founded. 



Two important papers on plant diseases have been published in 

 Holland in Meded. Kijks Hoog. Land-, Tain- Bosch-bouwsch. x. &. xii. 

 1916 & 1917, and have been reissued in slightly abridged form in 

 English and French. The first, by H. M. Quanjer assisted by H. A. 

 A. \'an der Lek and J, Oortwijn Botjes, deals with phloem necrosis 

 (leaf-root) and related diseases such as the Sereh diseases of sugar- 

 cane. In potato plants affected wdth this disease the phloem is found 

 to be largely abnormal : the cell-walls are swollen and become a 

 yellowish- brown colour, the necrosis being most marked in the older 

 jwrtions near the groups of bast fibres. The trouble can be traced 

 from the leaf mid-rib to the underground parts of the stem near the 

 seed tuber. No specific organism has been detected as the origin of 

 the necrosis, and it has been referred vaguely to the action of some 

 virus though the author is inclined to think it ma}^ be due to some very 

 minute bacillus or even to some protozoon. The whole question is 

 studied in great detail and the paper forms a weighty contribution to 

 the elucidation of an obscure problem. It is illustrated by coloured 

 and photographic plates, some of them stereoscopic, and by figures. 

 The second ])aper translated into French is by Van der Lek and gives 

 the results of his investigations on Rhizoctonia violacea, a fungal 

 disease of beetroot, carrot, &c. The author has proved by observation 

 and culture that the species is not identical with RJiizoctonia Solani. 

 He has been the first to succeed in growing pure cultures ; in these it 

 grows as a fine white mycelium which later becomes fjurj^le ; minute 

 sclerotia were formed but no reproductive bodies were observed. The 

 paper is illustrated by photographic j^lates and by figures. — A. L. S. 



The Naturalist for November contains notes on the Flora of 

 nibble- Craven, by J. F. Pickard ; a paj^er on Sphagna by W. Ingham, 

 with notes on their use " in social life"; and a notice, with portrait, of 

 the late llobert Braithwaite. 



The Garden of Oct. 13 has an article on " Native Blackberries,, 

 cultivated," by Mr. J. C. Vartv-Smith. He especially recommends- 

 Ruhus Koelileri (misspelt Kolleri) which he says is " very pro- 

 ductive, early, and bears large fruit." "The writer has the plants 

 growing and hanging down over a high ha-ha wall facing south, a 

 position ver}^ suitable, and where the fruit can be easily gathered." 



IIoic to Collect and Dry Flowering Plants and Ferns is a neat. 



