368 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 
jects as growth and nutrition, fertilization, heredity, and the physiology of 
cultivation and improvement. 
‘ tter knowledge of the pathology of plants, particularly of that ill- 
defined state known as “lowered vitality.” 
By all of which is meant not only that botanists should learn more con- 
cerning the subjects mentioned, but also that students should be better taught 
the little we do know about them. 
Prof. T. J. Burrill’s paper upon an experiment in silk culture was chiefly 
concerned with a contagious disease which destroyed the worms. ‘This he 
identified as the flacherie of Pasteur, probably the first recognized existence of 
this disease in America. The other papers were not botanical, except a short 
report by Prof. W. J. Beal, upon the progress of certain experiments upon the 
vitality of buried seeds. The officers elected for next year are Henry E. Al 
vord, president, and B. D. Halsted, secretary and treasurer. 
é Nasturtium Leaves.—One day last month, when plucking a bunch 
of garden Nasturtiums (Zropaolum) I observed two small abnormally shaped 
leaves on one Jateral stem. They were spatulate in form, and each was 
plant usually. This form might, I should think, illustrate the evolution of 
the peltate leaf from a rounded leaf by the joining together of the lower mar 
gin. The spatulate leaves would, however, require more modification, the 
blade of the leaf needing to be much widened and extended at its base into 
lobes before the margins could coalesce into the shield-shaped form.—Ross 
Smrrn, San Diego, Cal. 
Notes on Black Knot.—These notes of occasional observations on Plow 
rightia (Spheer ia) morbosa this season may be worth saving, as they differ in some 
particulars from what has been recorded. 
_ The mycelium stimulates to excessive development the growth of the 
which, bursting the older bark, permits the fruit of the parasite to form att 
surface of the living tissue thus exposed. With the excessive development the 
