1901] : CURRENT LITERATURE - 67 
foliage except when very weak solutions were used. The soda-Bordeaux was 
also injurious, as was the ammoniacal solution of copper carbonate. Potas- 
sium sulfid, however, proved to be harmless, and at the same time to bea 
fairly good fungicide. Normal copper acetate solution was harmless but the 
subacetate caused injury. Careful comparative examinations of leaves of 
plants susceptible to injury by copper-containing fungicides, viz., peach, 
Japanese plum, and apricot, with leaves of plants not so injured, viz., 
European plum, apple, cherry, quince, and pear, failed to reveal any constant 
difference in the thickness of the leaves as a whole, or of the epidermis and 
the different layers of tissue, or in the size or number of the stomata. 
The susceptible leaves, however, had a very dense spongy parenchyma, with 
small intercellular spaces, while the non-susceptible leaves had this tissue 
very loose in texture.— ERNST A. BESSEY. 
CLEISTOGAMOUS FLOWERS” are found in nearly all violets, but are espe- 
cially typical in Viola odorata, The normal flower which appears early in the 
spring has a handsome corolla, but it seldom produces good seed. The 
inconspicuous cleistogamous flowers which come later, usually after the nor- 
mal flowers have disappeared, produce an abundance of good seed. The 
stamens are larger in the normal flowers than in the cleistogamous, but the 
size of the ein ene is about the same in both. The structure of the 
anther wall is rent, the normal anther having the usual endothecium 
with lignified iiciencician whikess in the cleistogamous flower the endothecial 
layer retains its nucleus and cytoplasm. 
After the pollen is mature there is a resting period of various duration. 
Pollen tubes are then put out which penetrate the wall of the anther at its 
upper part where there is a region of small cells rich in protoplasm, a tissue 
comparable to the conductive tissue of the style. Oxalis acetosella, Linaria 
spurta, and Leersia oryzotdes were also studied. 
In typical cleistogamous flowers the pollen germinates within the pollen 
sac, and the structure of the anther wall is modified to meet the new mode o 
pollination. In Linaria and Leersia, where the pollen was not observed to 
germinate within the pollen sac, the anther wall has the same structure as in 
the normal flower.— CHARLEs J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
BULLETINS from the experiment stations of interest to botanists, and not 
heretofore mentioned in these pages, are as follows: A, S. HirTcHcock and 
G. L. CLoTHIER (Kans. no. 87, pp. 29) write upon the “ Native agricultural 
grasses of Kansas,” with many illustrations and charts of distribution. H. 
GARMAN writes on the agricultural grasses of Kentucky, with some fine 
reproductions from photographs, and A. M, PETER supplies some chemical 
analyses, the two articles forming one bulletin (Ky. no. 87, pp. 68, A/. 74). 
7 Du SaBLon, LECLERC: Recherches sur les fleurs cléistogames. Revue Gén- 
€rale de Botanique 12: 305-318. s7 figs. 1900. 
