1891.] Notes and News. - 59 



The mosses collected by Dr. Julius Roll along the N. P. R. R. in 

 1888 were distributed to different bryologists for study, Brotherus, 

 Miiller, Venturi, Cardot, Renauld, and Barnes. From their reports 

 diagnoses of 24 new species and 20 new subspecies and varieties are 

 published in the Bot. Centralblatt, xhv, 385-391 and 417-424. The full 

 reports are to be published later. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle has just celebrated its jubilee, its first num- 

 ber having appeared January 12, 1841. The founders were Dr. Lindley 

 and Sir Joseph Paxton. It is to be congratulated upon its long and 

 eminent list of contributors and upon its constantly increasing use- 

 fulness. It is one of those gardening journals that have become a 

 necessity not only to the practical gardener but to the professional 

 botanist as well. 



A strange fungus from Madagascar is described and figured in the 

 Journal of Botany (Jan.) by George Massee. It consists of a stem-axis 

 bearing distinct pilei which are acropetal in development. "The stem 

 is erect, tapering upwards, and bearing several superposed circular 

 pilei separated by elongated internodes, and becoming smaller up- 

 wards." It becomes 6 to 9 cm. high, has been taken as the type of a 

 new genus, and bears the name Mycodendron paradoxa. 



In a descriptive list of Ranunculaceae from western North 

 America, J. Freyn in the Deutsche bot. Monatsschrift for last December 

 (via, p. 176) describes a blue form of wind flower from Washington as 

 Anemone cxanau which seems to be closely like, if not identical with, 

 A. Oregana of Gray. He also distinguishes variety striguiosus of 

 Ranunculus rep tans from Oregon, and" raises the British American 

 form, R. aciuatilis, var. heterophyllus Torr. & Gr., to the dignity of a 

 species under the name R. Grayanus. 



Marcel Brandza has made a somewhat extended study of the 

 anatomical characters of hybrids. Some of the peculiarities he figures 

 (in the Revue gen. de Bot., vol. ii,) are very striking. His general 

 conclusions are as follows : 1. Certain hybrids present in their struc- 

 ture a combination of the special characters found separately in the 

 parents. 2. In other cases the structure of the different parts of the 

 hybrid is, for all tissues, simply intermediate between the two parents. 

 3. Other hybrids have in certain organs an intermediate structure and 

 in other organs a structure combining the anatomical peculiarities of 

 the parents. 



M. Gaston Bonnier began some time ago a series of experimental 

 cultures of various plants at different altitudes m the Alps and Pyrenees 

 (from 740 to 2400 m.) to determine the effect of Alpine conditions. 

 He presents (Rev. gen. de Bot., ii, 513) the results of this work so far 

 as they relate to the fades of the plants. As compared with plants 

 grown in lowlands, the stature is very small ; the internodes are very 

 short ; the subterranean parts are relatively much more developed ; 

 the leaves are very small and both relatively and absolutely thicker 

 and of a darker green color ; and the flowers are of more vivid hues. 

 In a future paper he promises to show that both structure and function 

 are correspondingly modified. The illustrations show the changes in 

 size very strikingly. 



