1S91.] Notes and News. . 157 



A sorghum smut (Ustilago Reiliana Kuhn) new to the United States 

 is recorded by Messrs. Kellerman and Swingle (Trans. Kans. Acad. 

 Sci., xii, 158), as occuring in Kansas. It attacks the panicle, and re- 

 duces it to a more or less uniform mass of spores. In Europe it also 

 attacks the staminal inflorescence of Indian corn. 



Dr. W. J. Beal has issued a bulletin (no. 72) describing the six worst 

 weeds of Michigan. They prove to be Cnicus arvensis, Lithospermum 

 arvense, Verbascum Blattaria, Linaria vulgaris, Plautago lanceolata, and 

 Rumex crispus. A sample of the seeds of each is glued upon one of 

 the pages, so that the farmer may intelligently examine his seed before 

 sowing. 



In his " Notes on North American Trees," Professor C. S. Sargent 

 has taken up the genus Acer (Garden and Forest, April 1). In regard 

 to the confused synonymy of our sugar maple, the author inclines to 

 the use of Michaux's name A. barbatum. Following most late authors, 

 he merges Negundo into Acer and uses the Linnsean Acer Negundo 

 as the name of our box elder. 



We note with pleasure that Mr. Thomas Meehan, the editor of the 

 Gardeners' Monthly until its discontinuance at the death of the pub- 

 lisher, and so long and widely known by his botanical writings, will 

 soon begin the publication, assisted by his sons, of a new journal of 

 gardening and botanical miscellany. .It will be known as Meehan s 

 Monthly, and the first number will appear July 1. 



The Botanical Club of Washington has begun to make arrange- 

 ments for entertaining the botanists of the A. A. A. S. They are in- 

 tending among other things to issue a souvenir of about 40 pages, 

 giving some account of the trees and shrubs of the streets and parks, 

 with photographic illustrations. The large number of botanists in 

 Washington will no doubt do all 111 their power to make a week's stay 

 pleasant for visiting botanists. 



Mr. Geo. B. Sudworth shows in Garden and Forest (April 8) that 

 if botanists adhere to the priority of specific name as rigidly as zoolo- 

 gists, that three of our well known plants should be called Negundo 

 Negundo, Sassafras Sassafras, and Catalpa Catalpa. It occurs to us 

 that his point is well taken. These extraordinary combinations seem 

 not to have given zoologists any trouble, as a list of names from 

 Jordan's " Manual of Vertebrates " testifies. 



Nearly one-tenth of the British Agar/c/ni, the group of mush- 

 rooms and toadstools, are good eating, as we learn from Grevillea 

 (xix, 83). There are 1,400 species in the British Isles, of which some- 

 what over half are too small, rare or tough to be of culinary value. 

 This leaves 680 species that may be edible. Of this number 134 are 

 known to be suitable for the table, some 30 are poisonous, and of the 

 remaining 516, nothing certain is known. 



The popular notion that the sunflowers turn with the sun has been 

 put to the test by W. A. Kellerman, who records (Trans. Kans. Acad. 

 Sci., xii, 140), a large number of observations on the wild Helianthus 

 annuus. He finds that about 87 per cent, of the heads while in bloom 



