141 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 



The American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 meets in Brooklyn from the 16th to the 22d of this month. 



■ 



Dr. Otto Kuntze returned in May to his home at Friede- 

 nau, near Berlin, after five months of exploration in Southern 

 Africa. 



A RECENT bulletin from the Department of Agriculture 

 deals with the Bussian thistle, Salsola Kali, var. Tragus, a 

 pernicious alien from Southeastern Bussia introduced into 

 the wheat fields of the Northwest, particularly those of South 

 Dakota. About 35,000 square miles have been more or less 

 covered within twenty years, and it is still aggressively reach- 

 ing out in its conquest of new territory. 



One of the recent issues from the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden is a Bevision of the North American species of 

 Sagittaria and Lophotocarpus. Twenty-two species and 

 seven varieties are described, four of the species and three of 

 the varieties being new. The Sagittaria of our California 

 river-marsh region is disposed of as a form of S. latifolia, 

 "Willd., and the plant of the Sierras is referred to 5, arifoUa, 

 Nutt. This contribution is after the fashion of Dr. Trelease's 

 excellent monographs on Epilobium, and Gayophytum and 

 Boisduvalia, and is accompanied by twenty-eight plates, 

 illustrating many of the species, varieties and forms. 



''Minnesota Botanical Studies" is the title of a series 



of papers issued as parts of a bulletin by the Geological and 

 Natural History Survey of Minnesota. Part I. appeared in 

 January, Part II. in March, and Part III. in June. The last 

 part contains a Revision of the Mucoraceae by Roscoe Pound, 

 a Revision of the Minnesota Grasses of the tribe Hordese by 

 Prancis Ramaley, and a Preliminary List of North American 

 species of Astragalus by Edmund P. Sheldon. In the latter 

 paper the author describes twenty-four new species, a fair 

 proportion of which are from the Pacific Coast. 



