l8 9i.] Notes and News. 91 



A convenient key to the genera and species of British mosses is 

 published (with a plate) by Rev. H. G. Jameson in the last Journal of 



Botany (Feb.). 



Mr. F. H. Knowlton, of the U. S. Geol. Survey, has published an 

 account of fossil woods and lignites from Arkansas. Two new conifers 

 (Cupressinoxylon) and two new dicotyls (Laurinoxylon) are described 

 and figured. 



In the Philadelphia Public Ledger of Jan. 20, Mr. Thomas Meehan 

 publishes an interesting account of an almost forgotten botanist, 

 Mathias Kin, a man well know to Muhlenberg and Collins, and about 

 whom Dr. Asa Gray wrote that his history should be worked up by 

 Philadelphia botanists. 



In an inaugural dissertation at Erlangen, Georg Schneider shows 

 that the "wax " of Myrica cerifera is more nearly allied to the fats than 

 to the wax-like bodies. It consists chiefly of palmatin (70 per cent.) 

 myristin (8 per cent.) and lauric acid (4.7 per cent., mostly free), to 

 form which 9.4 per cent, of glycerin is combined with the correspond- 

 ing fatty acids. 



Some account of the occurrence and life history of the clover rust 

 {Uromyces Trifolii Wint.) has been published by Miss J. K. Howell, 

 (Bull. Cornell Exper. Station, No. 24). The uredo stage wa,s produced 

 upon both red and white clover plants by artificial sowing of the 

 aecidiospores. Attempts to germinate the teleutospores in the spring 

 unexpectedly proved quite fruitless. 



Dr. Joseph Boehm has at least the merit of consistency in the fram- 

 ing of his theory of transpiring plants. It follows, he says to the 

 Royal Botanical Society of Vienna, 1 since capillarity is the cause of 

 the absorption and ascent of water in transpiring plants, that under 

 certain conditions the transpiration stream may be reversed, so that 

 water must escape from the plant into the ground! 



In the last Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club (Feb.) Dr. Morong 

 gives an interesting account of the" flora of the desert of Atacama. \n 

 the same number Dr. Britton describes six new plants from Dr. Kusby's 

 S. American collection, belonging to the following genera: Begonia, 

 Hariota, Hydrocotyte, Arracacia, Sciadophyllum, and Oreopanax; and 

 Mrs. Britton describes and figures two new Idaho mosses, a Gnmmia 

 and a Bryum. 



The product of marketable shoots of asparagus is found by W. J. 

 Green (Bull. Ohio Exper. Station, iii, p. 241) to be fifty per cent 

 greater from male plants than from female plants. Preliminary tests 

 were made in 1889, and more complete tests in 1890. During the 

 latter year 50 plants of each kind were used. The difference in vigor 

 is ascribed to the exhaustive effect of seed bearing in the female plants, 

 which is absent in the male plants. 



Proe. Dr. F. B. Power and Mr. J. Cambier have recently examined 

 chemically two of the best known " loco-weeds," Astragalus molhssi- 

 mus and Crotalaria sagittalis. They close their paper in Pharm. Ru nd- 



1 Bot. Centralb xliv, \\j~i. 



