1897] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 67 



Mr. (xcorg-e J. Burch, of Oxford, P^ntJ^land, has been ex- 

 perimentino- upon plants with Rontg^en photog-r.iphy. He 

 finds that flower buds and seed vessels are especially fav- 

 orable objects. He believes that if the photog"raph could 

 be made upon a magfnified scale the outline of every cell 

 would be seen. The capsules of hyacinth and the flower 

 buds of fuschia are reproduced in his account published 

 in Gardeners' Chronicle III. 



Numbers 11 and 12 of Lloyd's Photog-ravures of Ameri- 

 can Fung-i have recently been distributed. They repre- 

 sent respectively Lepiota morgani Peck and Sparassis 

 herlDstii Peck, two interesting- species. The first was 

 photog"raphed as it gfrew in the field, and makes an unus- 

 ually attractive and characteristic picture. 



BACTERIOLOGY. 



Bacteriosis of Carnations. — Dr. J. C.Arthur and Prof. 

 H. L. BoUey g"ive an excellent account of one of the most 

 serious difficulties the carnation grower has to encounter, 

 namely, Bacteriosis which theyascribe to a new org-anism, 

 Bacterium dianthi. The org-anism responsible for this 

 disease is oval or elliptical in outline and does not occur in 

 chains. It is motile and produces zoog-loea. In gelatin it 

 produces at first a smooth even g-rowth along- the track of 

 the needle, having- a pale cream color, later it assumes a 

 marked appearance and the color is bright orang-e, being 

 much deeper in acid cultures. It slowly liquefies g-elatin. 

 The zoogloea are formed as follows: "Certain individuals, 

 without ceasing active multiplication, become non-motile, 

 and at once beg-in to excrete a gelatinous envelope. This 

 envelope offers considerable resistance to longitudinal ex- 

 tension, and the new cells as they form slip past one 

 another, accumulating in an elong-ated mass, which in- 

 creases faster in thickness than in length." If the nutrient 

 material is not renewed, the zoogloea disintegrate in ten to 

 fifteen days by liquefaction of the gelatinous envelope; this 

 permits the bacteria to fall to the bottom of the fluid. They 

 multiply very rapidh', a well marked constriction occurred 



