1887. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 23 
PRoFEssorR RopoLFo LANctantA, of Rome, delivers a course of lectures 
on Roman archeology at the Johns Hopkins University during January, 
the second one of which is devoted to the flora and parks of ancient 
ome. 
THE FACT that some ovaries swell and ripen without ripening seed 
finds an explanation in the suggestion that the pollen-tube lives as a 
parasite upon the cells of the style, and so causes an extra flow of nour- 
ishmen 
H. N. Ripiry has concluded his list, in the Journal of Botany, of the 
monocotyledonous plants of New Guinea, collected by Mr. H. O. Forbes. 
ew species abound, interesting among which are tivo new palms, and 
two new screw pines. 
THE Encuisu fungus forays for 1886 proved less successful than usual, 
owing to a scarcity of fungi and unpropitious weather. The Essex Fiel 
Club appears to have done the best, although the two days’ search had to 
be made under umbrellas. 
Drues AnD MeEpicrnes for September, No. 2 of Vol. 2, has recently 
appeared, and, as heretofore, is a mine of botanical and medical informa- 
tion. The last part of the article on Magnolia, the first on Lobelia, and 
all on Asimina, fill up the number 
Dr ER, U S. N., has been verifying and extending the re- 
searches of Hueppe and Lister on the microbe of lactic acid fermenta- 
tion, which he thinks has to do with the souring of milk, while Laurent 
of Belgium has been studying the microbe of bread fermentation, called 
Bacillus panificus. 
THE AMERICAN (formerly Michigan) Horticulturist has been merged 
into the Pypular Gardentng. Under the editorship of Mr. Charles W. 
Garfield, the eminent horticulturist, it was a valuable journal, giving 
promise of future growth and usefulness, and his dismissal was a calam- 
ity from which it did not recover. 
now out of print. We hope that the demand for this excellent work will 
encourage the author to prepare a third edition. 
fourth lecture being devoted especially to plants. 
__IN A PAPER read at the recent Potato Tercentenary Conference, pub- 
lished in Gardeners’ Chronicle, Dr. J. G. Baker states that the five distinct 
