1897] NEWS 143 
Dr. BRADLEY M. Davis has sailed for Europe, to be absent for one 
year. 
Dr. CHARLES E. Bessey’s presidential address before the Botanical 
Society of America will be printed in full in the September number of the 
BOTANICAL GAZETTE. The subject is ‘‘ Phylogeny and Taxonomy of the 
Angiosperms.” 
Mr. WILLIAM WESLEY WOOLEN, a prominent citizen of Indianapolis, 
and a member of the Indiana Academy of Science, has indicated his inten- 
tion of presenting to the city a tract of land containing fifty-six acres, to be 
used as a botanic garden and an ornithological preserve. The tract is very 
accessible to the city, and is admirably adapted to the purposes indicated. 
The details of management are now being considered. 
THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS of Professor Marshall Ward at the Toronto 
meeting of the British Association was largely a sketch of the progress of our 
knowledge of fungi during the Victorian period. The paper brought 
together in a masterly way the principal advances and defined the present 
condition of the subject. It will prove an exceedingly valuable reference 
paper, that might have been enhanced by bibliographical references. The 
ground traversed was so-extensive that the.address was fairly encyclopedic. 
TWENTY FIVE PAPERS were presented before Section G of the American 
Association, in addition to the vice presidential address of Professor George 
F. Atkinson, on “ Experimental Morphology.” The titles are as follows: 
Charles A. Davis, Trillium grandiflorum, its variations normal and terato- 
logical; £. J. Durand, A discussion of the structural characters of the order 
Pezizinez of Schréter; K. JZ. Weigand, The taxonomic value of fruit charac- 
ters in the genus Galium ; Charles E. Bessey, Report upon the progress of the 
botanical survey of Nebraska; Albert F. Woods, Bacteriosis of carnations ; 
rwin F. Smith, Wakker’s hyacinth Bacterium; Charles &. Bessey, Are the 
trees receding from the Nebraska plains? C. A. Peters, Reproductive organs 
and embryology of Drosera; /. O. Schlotterbeck, Development of some seed 
Coats; /. H. Schuette, Contributions on wild and cultivated roses of Wiscon- 
sin and bordering states ; Fanny E. Langdon, Development of the pollen of 
Asclepias Cornuti: Charles E. Bessey, Some characteristics of the foothill veg- 
etation of western Nebraska; H. F. Osborn and E. B. Poulton, Organic selec- 
tion; James B. Pollock, Mechanism of root curvature ; Frederick C. New- 
combe, Cellulose ferment ; Rodney H. True and C. J. Hunkel, the toxic action 
of phenols on plants; Charles Porter Hart, \s the characteristic acridity of 
Certain species of the arum family a mechanical or a physiological property 
or effect? W. 7. Beal, How plants flee from their enemies; Alex. P. Ander- 
son, Stomata on the bud scales of Adies pectinata, Comparative anatomy of 
