442 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ DECEMBER 
well morphology, taxonomy, ecology, physiology, what not. Thena few pages 
are devoted to minute structure, and a review of forms follows with the highest 
spermatophytes leading the procession, and in the usual modern proportion 
of about four pages of spermatophytes to one of the “sporophytes”’ (the 
author's word). 
The physiology is divided into the chemical and physical processes 
within, and the “biology,” z. ¢., relations to environment ; a separation not 
without difficulty. Three pages are devoted to “something about plant 
raphy,’ and a key for identifications completes the work. The text is 
Gesu clear, simple, and free from technical phraseology. Most of 
the illustrations are borrowed from the Natiérlichen Pflanzenfamilien, which 
is sufficient commendation.—JOHN G. COULTER. 
MINOR NOTICES. 
THE WRITINGS of Professor Dr. P. Magnus, of Berlin, include much mat- 
ter that is of moment to American botanists. Dr. Magnus is a student of 
fungi, but writes to some extent upon other subjects. His interests are 
catholic, and he has often contributed to the solution of problems arising in 
distant quarters of the globe. A number of separates (which he generously 
sends to all whom he knows to be interested in such subjects) have recently 
come to hand, and the opportunity istaken to give a brief account of their 
contents. 
In a communication to the Botanisches Centralblatt’ some criticisms are 
offered upon the treatment given the Hemibasidii and Uredinales by Dr. 
Dietel in Engler and Prantl’s Natirliche Pflanzenfamilien. It is pointed out 
that the sorus of Doassansia is never imbedded in the parenchyma of the 
host, as stated by Dietel (/. c., p. 21), but always lies immediately beneath 
and in contact with the epidermis. He reviews the genera Doassansia and 
Burrillia and their subgenera as characterized by Setchell, and holds them to 
be more logical and natural than the arrangement proposed by Dietel. Turn- 
ing to the Uredinee he states that Puccinia Schweinfurthii Magn. forms 
witches’ brooms, and should not be confounded with P. Mesneriana Thiim. or 
P. digitata Ell. & Hark., which never do so, although otherwise much alike. 
Exception is taken to the establishment of the genus Phragmopyxis with a 
layer around the spores that swells in water, while ignoring Schréter’s genus 
Uropyxis with just the same claim to recognition. It is pointed out that aside 
from this equivocal character, Uropyxis possesses good generic characters in 
the number and position of the teleutosporic pores. The suppression of the 
genera Xenodochus and Chaconia, and the grouping of some of the genera 
are not approved. 
5Einige Bemerkungen zu P. Dietel’s Bearbeitung der Hemibasidii und Uredinales 
tm Engler-Prantl Natiirliche Pflanzenfamilien Bd. I.—Bot. Centr. 74: 165-170. 1898. 
