208 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [August, 



Professor Edward L. Greene has been botanizing during June and 

 July in California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho. The first 

 part of August is to be given to Montana, and the last of the month to 

 Washington. 



Claytonia Chamissonis Esch. has been found in abundance in Min- 

 nesota by Prof. John M. Holzinger. It is described as growing in a 

 wooded ravine west of Queen's Bluff, about twenty miles below Winona. 

 The occurrence of this western mountain species so far east is an inter- 

 esting discovery. 



How should the names of the classes and orders of the Linnean sex- 

 ual system be pronounced ? Prof. Th. Fries says that, as this is a vexed 

 question, it is of interest to know that Linnaeus and his pupils accented 

 the penult (Monandria, Didynamfa, Monogynia, etc.), and that this prac- 

 tice continued in Sweden until the last decade. 



Another plant disease, the third surely attributable to the attack of 

 bacteria, is described by M. Ed. Prillieux in the Revue generate de Botan- 

 ique for June (p. 293). The disease appears on the twigs and larger 

 branches of the olive and Aleppo pine in the form of tumors of varying 

 size. The disease seriously affects the cultivation of the former tree. 



Prof. C. S. Sargent begins in the number of Garden and Forest for 

 July 17 a series of papers entitled "Notes upon some North American 

 Trees," in which he discusses points of nomenclature and offers other 

 critical remarks on these plants. This series, as well as much else of the 

 contents of this journal, will be found of value to systematic botanists. 



An interesting fossil plant from the Upper Devonian of Wyoming 

 county, Penn., is described and figured by Sir Wm. Dawson in Am. Jour. 

 Sci. (July). It combines the fructification of the Cwdaitex with the some- 

 what netted veined leaves of Nceggeraihia, thus connecting two groups 

 of paleozoic plants. It is by such discoveries that paleobotanists hope to 

 read the riddle of the palaeozoic flora. 



The recent bulletins from the Agricultural Experiment Stations 

 are as follows : Illinois, Grasses and Clovers, effect of ripeness on yield and 

 composition, Thomas F. Hunt ; Iowa, Sorghum, G. E. Patrick ; Kansas, 

 Sorghum blight, Hackberry knot, Cross-fertilization of corn, Germina- 

 tion of weed seeds, W. A. Kellerman and W. T. Swingle ; Michigan, Chemi- 

 cal composition of cornstalks, hay and screenings, R. C. Kedzie. 



F. Gravet notes (Revue Brydogique) that the red and yellow hues of 

 the leaves of the Sphagna appear only when the plants grow in exposed 

 places where they receive direct sunlight, and that these colors are due 

 to the presence of tannin, as shown by microchemical tests with sulphate 

 of iron and bichromate of potassium. In a very puzzling way, however, 

 the same colors under the reagents appear in the male branches and cap- 

 sules of green-leaved forms. 



