eae literature. Me had arrived at the same conclusion as Professor Magnus 
oa BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JANUARY 
description given by Mr. A. P. Morgan. It is reflexed and divided 
into eleven distinct segments; the inner peridium is depressed, 
slightly globose, being nearly twice as broad as deep; the width is 
about one inch, and there are eight distinct openings. 
The specimen was found in a dense wood, about three hundred 
yards from the lake shore, and about seventy-five or a hundred feet 
above the water level. 
It was first recorded in Ray’s Syzopsis in 1724; described and fig- 
ured by Dickinson from Great Britain in 1785 ; reported from Colorado 
by Charles H. Peck ; collected in Florida by L. M. Underwood in 1891 ; 
notes published by A. P. Morgan in American Naturalist, April 1892. 
—MeEt T. Cook, DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind. 
THE COMMON USTILAGO OF MAIZE. 
Mucu diversity of usage obtains in writing the name of the com- 
mon smut of Indian corn (maize). Probably Ustilago Maydis Cda. is 
the form that has been oftenest employed. Since the appearance of 
Winter’s revised edition of Rabenhorst’s Aryptogamen-Flora von 
Deutschland in 1881 the form introduced there by the editor, U. Zee- 
Mays (DC.) Wint., has been much in favor. The last change to which 
the purists have given adherence is the form derived by Magnus,’ and 
published in 1895. After going over the ground carefully he decided 
that the name should be U. Mays-Ze@ (DC.) Magn. 
For some time past the botanical department of the Indiana 
_ Experiment Station has been studying some economic features of the 
_ smut disease of corn, and incidentally looked into the history of the 
_ Latin name of the parasite. As the conclusion attained does not agree 
with that of previous writers, but brings forward another variation on 
: the name, it is thought best to publish the name adopted and a brief 
f onymy i in advance of the bulletin on the general subject, which is” 
- 1 course of preparation. The writer’s assistant, Mr. William 
rt, is entitled to much credit for carefully going over the accessible 
