330 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1000 



It is entitled " Smut Diseases of Cultivated 

 Plants, Their Cause and Control," and was 

 prepared by the Dominion Botanist, Mr. H. 

 T. Giissow. In somewhat less than sisty pages 

 the author presents in fairly non-technical 

 language the important facts about smut 

 fungi in general, followed by details regard- 

 ing ten species which attack wheat, barley, 

 oats, corn, broom corn, and millet. In an ap- 

 pendix the latter are described botanically for 

 the benefit of students. Good figures, which 

 are freely used, help both the farmer and the 

 student to identify the diseased hosts, as well 

 as the parasitic fungi. Preventive and reme- 

 dial measures are suggested at every step. 

 The importance of such a bulletin may be ap- 

 preciated when we remember that it is esti- 

 mated that Canadian farmers annually lose 

 about $15,000,000 from the ravages of these 

 smuts. 



Botanists and foresters will be glad to know 

 that Professor A. F. Blakeslee and his col- 

 league, C. D. Jarvis, have reprinted the Keys 

 to the Genera and Species of Trees in the 

 Eastern United States. These were originally 

 in their book " Trees in Winter," and the many 

 requests from teachers and others for sepa- 

 rate copies of these keys have induced the au- 

 thors to issue them in a 15-page pamphlet. It 

 may be obtained of the authors at Storrs, 

 Conn., for 30 cents, and should prove help- 

 ful to teachers who are trying to teach their 

 pupils how to know the names of the trees 

 about them. 



Some months ago there came to hand the 

 Annual Report of the Agrostologist and 

 Botanist of the Transvaal for the year 1911, 

 bearing date of June, 1912, but issued later 

 from the press. It was prepared by Professor 

 J. Burtt-Davy, the well-known botanist of 

 south Africa, and contains many items of 

 considerable botanical interest, especially to 

 those whose interest extends to applied botany. 

 A large part of the paper is devoted to a dis- 

 cussion of the plants suspected of being 

 poisonous to cattle (" lamziekte "). 



Among recent contributions from the United 

 States National Herbarium (Volumes 16 and 



17) are the following: Cook and Doyle's Stilt 

 Palms (Iriartineae). describing three new 

 genera; Britton and Rose's Studies in Cacta- 

 ceae, in which they describe seven new species 

 from Mexico, Guatemala and Panama; Cook's 

 Relationship of Pseudophoenix, a curious re- 

 lative of the Date Palm; Britton and Rose's 

 Genus Epiphyllum, in which two new genera 

 and five new species are described from Mexico 

 and southward: Smith and Rose's Monograph 

 of certain tribes (Hauyeae and Gongylocar- 

 peae) of the Onagraceae, represented by Mexi- 

 can and Calif ornian genera; Maxon's Fourth 

 instalment of his Studies of Tropical Ameri- 

 can Ferns, containing notes on Asplenium 

 trichomanes, DicTcsonia, Odontosoria, and 

 other fern genera, and new species of Lyco- 

 podium; Hitchcock's Mexican Grasses in th© 

 U. S. National Herbarium, including 133 

 genera and 613 species. The large genera 

 are Muhlenbergia (58 species), Panicum (54 

 sp.), Paspalum (39 sp.), Andropogon (28 sp.), 

 Bouteloua (28 sp.), Sporololus (21 sp.), Era- 

 grostis (21 sp.), Aristida (19 sp.) and Stipa 

 (16 sp.). Six bamboos are enumerated. 



The Contributions from the Gray Her- 

 barium of Harvard University (N. S., XLII.) 

 include critical studies of certain genera of 

 Composites, and a report upon the grasses 

 collected in British Honduras by Professor 

 M. E. Peck. 



Charles E. Besset 



University of Nebraska 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



MITOCHONDRIA IN TISSUE CULTURE 



The immense literature^ which has grown 

 up in the last few years, concerning these 

 minute bodies found in the cytoplasm of vari- 

 ous cells in many different species not only of 

 vertebrate and invertebrate animals but also 

 of plants, and the great importance which has 

 been assigned to them by various authors must 

 necessarily arouse even more general interest 

 and increased observation and discussion. 



A multiplicity of names has already been 

 given these bodies : mitochondria and chon- 



1 J. Duesberg, Ergebnisse der Anatomic imd Ent- 

 ivickelungsgescMchte, Bd. XX., 1911. 



