1 902 J CURRENT LITER A TURE 7 7 



niopsis,2.n^ Riccia Campbelliana. — David Griffiths {idem 290-301) has 

 described new western species of Tilletia (2), Ustilago, Sorosporium (2), 



^ 



Elmer D. Mer- 



rill (Bull. 9, Bureau Plant Industry, Depart. Agric.) has published a revi- 

 sion of the North American species of Spartina, recognizing nine, one of 

 which {S. Bakeriixom Florida) is new. — C. R. Orcutt (West Am. Sci. 12 : 

 163-16^. 1902) has described new species of Mamillaria (2) and Echinocac- 

 tus. — A. P. Morgan (Jour. Mycol. 8:4, 1902) has described a new genus 

 {Acontzum) of fungi related to Cephalosporium, and containing three new 

 species. — B. L. Robinson (Rhodora 4 : 135-137. 1902) has described a new 



{H. 



M. L. Ferxald 



{diem — ) has described a new species of Scutellaria {S. Churchilliana) 



from Maine.— H. M. Hall (Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. i : 1-140 pis. 1-14, 1902) 

 has described from the San Jacinto mountain new species of Elymus, Stipa, 

 ^ Oxytheca, Potentilla (2), and Erigeron.— J. M. C 



The rusts of cereals, especially the question of the transmission of 

 the disease by means of the seed, is made the subject of a recent paper by Dr. J. 

 Eriksson =^ in the first two issues of the Annates des Sciences Natiirelles of the 

 present year. The author reviews the sets of experiments made during the 

 years 1 892 to 1 899 to grow wheat, oats, and barley in pots protected from atmos- 

 pheric contagion by glazed cases of different designs, or by inserting the part 

 above ground of single plants into stoppered glass tubes. In spite of the most 

 careful protection rust appeared on the plants. The possible sources of this 

 infection are discussed in detail, and by a process of exclusion the conclu- 

 sion IS reached that it came through the seed, and not from spores floating 

 in the air, as generally assumed. In taking up the problem of the form m 

 which the fungus hibernates in the seed, it is shown that the generally 

 accepted view, that the mycelial life of the yellow rust {Puccinia glumarii??i) 

 may extend throughout the winter and up to the following harvest time, is 

 most likely an error. It is more probable that the rust which persists through 

 the winter dies out in spring, and that both the yellow rust {P. glumarum) 

 and the black rust (A ^ra/^fzw/V) possess mycelium having about the same 

 life period, and that the summer infection for both originates in essentially 

 the same manner. Seeds from rusted plants, it is asserted, are capable of 

 giving rise to rusted plants, with no external source of infection ; and the 

 author believes that the rust fungus exists in the seed in amycoplasmic form, 

 . and may so exist as long as the seed is viable. Seeds sometimes bear sori 



filled with teleutospores, but it is not from these spores that the infection is 

 derived 



While it is impossible to demonstrate the mycoplasm, the fungus for the 



=^3 Sur rorigine et la propagation de la rouille des c^reales. Ann. Sci. Nat, Bot. 



^'iil- 15 :i"l6o. pis, /~c I 



902. 



m 



