316 botanical gazette. [December, 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Minor Notices. 



Mr. H. L. Russell conducted a series of experiments in the winter of 

 1888-89 to determine the character of bacteria in the ice of Lake Mendo- 

 ta, at Madison, Wis. From his paper 1 we learn that no pathological germs 

 were present; that the freezing destroys about sixty per cent, as com- 

 pared with the number found in the water; and that no relation exists 

 between the number of germs in clear ice and snow-ice, in some cases a 

 larger number being found in clear transparent ice than was found m 

 any sample of snow-ice. The experiments are to be continued this win- 

 ter. 



Mr. Th. Holm describes 2 the mode of propagation of Hydrocotyle 

 Americana by tuberiferous stolons, and gives an account of their struc- 

 ture, with references to the descriptive works where this mode of propa- 

 gation is either not noticed or barely hinted at. Curiously, however, he 

 fails to notice that in Coulter and Rose's Revision of the Umbellifeme the 

 occurrence of these tubers is made a specific character. The plates which 

 accompany his paper are excellent. We hope he will carry out his inten- 

 tion of recording more such " notes." 



In the Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist, for 1889, Mr. A. B. Seymour prints 

 a list of the fungi which he collected along the line of the N. P. R. R* at 

 various points in 1884. One new species is described, Uromyces Alopec- 

 uri, on Alopecurus geniculatus, var. aristatus at Brainerd, Minn., and one 

 new variety, Sorosporium Ellisii, var. occidentalis, on Andropogon fur- 

 catus at Bismarck. Dak. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Wak 



at the dairy school at Oudshoorn, Holland. 



Dr. F. Noll, assistant at Wiirzburg under Prof. Sachs, has been 

 called to a professorship of botany at the University of Bonn. 



Dr. G. von Lagerheim, attache of the botanical laboratory of the 

 University of Lisbon, has been called to the professorship of botany in 

 the University of Quito. 



The great book establishment of F. A. Brockhaus, in Leipzig, has 

 issued its 1889 catalogue of second-hand botanical works. It is a classi- 

 fied list of over 3,400 titles, issued in four parts, which will be sent free 

 upon request. 



1 Preliminary observations on the bacteria of ice from Lake Mendota, Madison. Wfr 

 Reprinted from M l News, August 17, 1889. Uepaged. pp. 15. 



2 Notes on Hydrocotyle Americana.-Kx tract* <1 from Proc. Nat. Museum, si. PP- 455 ^ 

 ', pi. x viand xvii. 



