1898 | CURRENT LITERATURE 461 
The ‘‘ Fifth report of Kansas weeds,” by A. S. Hitchcock and Geo. L. 
Clothier (Kans. no. 76, pp. 1-23, f/s. 72), deals with the vegetative propa- 
gation of forty-eight perennials. A dozen plates with well-drawn figures 
illustrate the subterranean parts and habits of each sort of plant. Tests were 
made to determine the length of cuttings of roots or rhizomes that would 
throw out adventitious buds and become established as independent plants. 
The station is doing good work in issuing its series of weed studies.— 
ELENCHUS FUNGORUM NOVORUM for the year 1897 appears in the April 
number of Hedwigia. It is prepared by G, Lindau and P. Sydow, and forms 
a third similarly published supplement to Saccardo’s great Sy/loge Fungorum. 
It is interesting to note that the enumeration of species published during 1895 
reached the grand total of 1252, for 1896 of 1313, and for 1897 of 1476. This 
indicates increasing activity in the study of this class of plants. The enumer- 
ation does not include lichens and bacteria, but does include the myxomycetes 
and the myxobacteria,—J, C. A. 
THE SPREAD of plant diseases was presented in a lecture before the Mas- 
sachusetts Horticultural Society by Dr. Erwin F. Smith more than a year 
ago, but has only recently been printed and distributed. Much stress is laid 
upon the agency of insects, as they are’ especially prominent in the spread of 
pear blight, bacterial wilt of cucurbits, and bacterial brown rot of solan- 
aceous plants, if not exclusively responsible for it. Slugs are known to dis- 
tribute a number of diseases, including the bacterial brown rot of cabbage. 
Other methods of distribution are discussed, such as manure, soil, seeds, tubers, 
etc. A brief statement of preventive measures closes the lecture.—J. C. A. 
RECENT BULLETINS from the experiment stations pertaining to — 
pathology are as follows : “A bacterial disease of sweet corn,” by F. C. Stew- 
art (N. Y., no, 130, pp. 423-439, BZ. ¢), deals with a disease heretofore unrecog- 
nized. It is a bacterial disease attacking the plant at any stage of its growth, 
but more often at flowering time, causing the plant to wilt by clogging the 
fibrovascular bundles of the stem. The germ has been separated and inocula- 
tion experiments tried. It does not grow in field corn or pop corn. A review 
of the “cornstalk diséase” of cattle, by A. T. Peters (Neb., no. 52, pp. 51-63), 
confirms the conclusion of some previous investigators that it Is due to a germ 
entirely distinct from that causing the Burrill disease of corn, which in ge is 
distinct from the corn disease mentioned above. “A bacterial rot of cab adi 
and allied plants,” by H. L. Russell (Wis., no. 65, pp- 1-3 Ags. oe ; 
already received notice in this journal (25 : 67). : The olive knot, y 2 : 
Bioletti (Calif., no. 120, pp. I-11, £4. 3, Ags. 2 0 text), is an pats Sate 
disease which is more generally known under the name of tubercu: val 
olive. It was first seen in California in 1893, and is yet known in only 
