390 



Society of London and a Correspondent of the Academic des 

 Sciences, Institut de France. For the first twenty years of its 

 existence he acted as co-editor of the Annals of Botany. 



Within the past two years America has lost three of her most 

 prominent systematic mycologists, in the persons of Peck (July, 

 11th, 1917), Atkinson (November 4th, 1918), and Farlow 

 (June 3rd, 1919). 



E. M. W. 



M. A. Sargent, — "We record with great regret the death 



& a "~" j -^^ 



Mary Allen Sargent, wife of Professor C. S. Sargent, of 

 the Arnold Arboretum. Botanical science has suffered a great 

 loss in Mrs. Sargent's death, for, like her husband, she had a 

 great love of nature, and did much for the study of arboriculture. 

 Her keen interest in the subject led her to accompany the 

 Professor on many of his botanical expeditions, and in their 

 travels she made careful studies and drawings of the trees they 

 collected. Her skill as a painter of the trees of North America 

 will keep h£r in remembrance outside the circle of those whose 

 privilege it was to have experienced her warm-hearted welcome, 

 for the collection of water-colour drawings of trees, made between 



1880 and 1890, is now a much valued exhibit in the Museum of 

 Natural History, New York. This fine collection comprises 

 some 400 paintings, which possess an artistic merit which equals 

 their educational interest. 



One-leaved Ash (Fraxinus excelsior var. JieterophyUa) from 

 Seed. — It is interesting to know how far abnormal forms of trees 

 come true from seed. Nurserymen generally propagate such 

 forms by grafting, but it would be an obvious advantage if they 

 <-ould be obtained on their own roots, especially from seeds, 

 Because seedling trees on the whole are more satisfactory than 

 grafted ones, or even than those raised from cuttings. Seeds of 

 Irish yew have been sown at Kew but the results have not been 

 good, as nearly all the seedlings have proved to be reversions to 

 common yew. This, of course, is to a great extent to be ex- 

 pected, because the Irish yew is a female tree, and its seeds must 

 necessarily be the result of pollination by some tree not 

 fastigiate in habit. The true Lombarrly poplar again, being a 

 male, cannot reproduce itself from seed, yet several hybrid 

 poplars — Amongst them Papains Eugenei and P. berolinensis 

 — are believed to owe their pollen parentage to it, and from it to 

 have inherited their comparatively slender; columnar shape. 



Henry records that of several hundreds of acorns of the cypress 

 oak (Quercus pedunculata var. fastigiata) sown.at White Knights, 

 only five came true, but that thirty acorns sown at Nancy pro- 

 duced twelve seedlings true to type. The sub- variety of the 

 cvpress oak known as Grangei, of which there are examples at 

 Kew, apparently represents a partial reversion to typical (?. 

 peJunculata, as the trees are broadly pyramidal in shape, not 

 columnar. Seeds of pnrple beech are well known to produce a 

 variable percentage true. 



