260 
Mr. Fred J. Seaver spoke briefly on the number of apparently 
diseased plants which have been referred to the Garden during 
the past season in which the injury was caused by “red spider’’ 
rather than fungi. One of the means of checking this insect is 
o spray with water and keep the air moist. It would seem 
probable that the prevalence of this insect during the past sum- 
mer might be due in part to the dry weather, this acting in- 
directly on the development of the insect and directly through its 
weakening effect on the host. FRED J. SEAVER 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 
Dr. Arthur Hollick, curator, has been granted leave of 
absence for the purpose of studying and reporting upon paleo- 
botanical material collected by him in Alaska in 1903, under 
direction of the U.S. Geological Survey. He plans to be in 
Washington at the U. S. National Museum until May 1, 1911. 
W. A. Murrill, assistant director, returned from Europe, 
November 20. During his absence of seven weeks, he examined 
all of the collections of gill-fungi from tropical America in the 
herbaria at Copenhagen, Upsala, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, and 
London. 
Dr. Melchior Treub, who from 1885 until his retirement last 
October 3, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. Dr. Treub besides 
editing the important Annales du Jardin Botanique de Buiten- 
zorg since 1885, had published many noteworthy botanical 
papers, covering various phases of the science. 
The daily papers of October 27 announced the death, on Octo- 
ber 26, on board the steamship Lake Manitoba en route to Liver- 
pool, of David Pearce Penhallow, Sc.D., MacDonald Professor 
of Botany at McGill University, Montreal. Professor Penhallow’s 
principal line of work in recent years was in morphology, both 
of fossil and living plants, but he was also actively interested in 
