BOTANICAL CLUB, A. A. A. 8. 217 
prevalent in the United States on the roots of peaches, 
almonds and other stone fruits. These tumors vary in size 
from a pea to that of a man’s fist. Nursery stock is especially 
subject to attack, and the roots of a small tree may often bear 
half a dozen, nearly the whole energy of the plant being used 
up by these abnormal growths. The disease occurs from 
New Jersey to Georgia and west through Michigan and 
Missouri to Arizona and California. It is now most pre- 
valent on the Pacific Coast, where its depredations are 
serious and increasing every year. A microscopic examin- 
ation of the inner tissues of fresh young tumors has not shown 
the presence of animal or vegetable parasites, and their cause 
is still a mystery. The most suggestive hypothesis is that 
they may be caused by external irritation, 7. e., to some 
parasite acting from without. It is a subject becoming 
economically more and more important, and will soon 
demand critical study by some vegetable pathologist. 
D. H. Campbell remarked on a preliminary study of the 
prothallium in Ophioglossacex, and exhibited this organ in 
Botrychium Virginianum. 
C. E. Bessey read a paper of ti 056 of Personal Names 
in Designating Species.” He ngly condemned the 
practice. N. L. Britton called ts. to the propriety of 
the use of personal adjectives in genera of a very large 
nuniber of species, where all the available descriptive adject- 
ives have been exhausted, and also of the valuable historical 
feature in the association of the first collector’s name with a 
species. A. B. Seymour approved the position taken by 
Dr. Bessey. Professor Coulter favored the use of personal 
names for the reasons advanced by Dr. Britton and on the 
ground that they were conducive to stability. 
Turspay, AuausT 22. 
+ J.C. Arthur exhibited and described a new form of regis- 
tering auxanometer. 
W. T. Swingle read a paper on “The Southernmost Botan- 
ical Laboratory of the United States.” He described the 
