July 13, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



mentary Botany.' The author assumes that 

 the compound microscope is available, and pro- 

 ceeds to plan the work accordingly. The se- 

 quence here is in our opinion not as philosoph- 

 ical as that in Dr. Barnes's book, beginning 

 with physiology (114 pp.), with structural stud- 

 ies next (164 pp.), followed by ecology (59 pp.). 

 However, the teacher will find much which is 

 helpful in the book, which has the merit of 

 having much original matter in it. 



Here perhaps may be noticed Professor W. 

 W. Bailey's booklet 'Botanizing,' intended to 

 be a guide to field collecting and herbarium 

 work. For this it is apparently well fitted. 

 It describes the equipment necessary for the 

 work in the field as well as in the herbarium, 

 and tells just how the work should be done for 

 diflferent groups of plants. It is not a modern 

 book, for the department of botany with which 

 it deals is not modern. When another edition 

 appears it may be well to make it a field man- 

 ual in a sense broad enough to include ecolog- 

 ical work. 



A STUDY OF NON-INDIGENOUS PLANTS. 



Professor and Mrs. Kelleeman, of Ohio, 

 have been studying the non-indigenous flora of 

 that State, publishing their results in the Journal 

 of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History for 

 March, 1900. They find that there are known 

 2060 flowering plants in the present flora of the 

 State, of which 430, or a little more than 21 per 

 cent., are non-indigenous. Of these foreigners 

 326 came from Europe, 30 from Asia, 2 from 

 Africa, 46 from Southern and Western United 

 States, 21 from tropical or South America, 

 while 5 are of unknown nativity. It will be 

 seen that more than 83 per cent, of these plants 

 came from the Old World. Fifty-five natural 

 families are represented by one or more species, 

 the largest being Compositae (88), Gramineae 

 (46), Druciferae (27), Labiatae (24), Caryophyl- 

 laceae (23), Legnminosae (19), Eosaceae (15), 

 Polyponaceae (14), Scrophulariaceae (14), Um- 

 belliferae (12), Boraginaceae (11), Chenopodia- 

 ceae (11). While many of these introduced 

 plants are useful, many also are weeds, no less 

 than 49 falling within this category, and of 

 these all but eight come from the Old World. 

 In order to show that by no means all of the 



weeds are exotic, the authors give a list of 40 

 troublesome weeds which are natives of Ohio. 



new species of insect parasites. 



Dr. Roland Thaxter, who is the authority 

 on the group of insect parasites constituting 

 the family Laboulbeniaceae has been able to 

 add very materially to our knowledge of the 

 group by a study of the material derived from 

 an examination of the entomological collections 

 in Paris, London, Oxford, Florence and Wash- 

 ington. He discovered 168 new species, be- 

 longing to 22 genera, some of the latter also 

 being new. The genus Laboulbenia is enriched 

 by the addition of 100 species. The new genera 

 are Monoicomycea, with four species : Polyasco- 

 myces, with one species ; Limnaiomyces, with two 

 species ; Eucorethromyees, with one species ; Mis- 

 gomyces, with two species, and Evzodiomyces, 

 with one species. The descriptions of these 

 new genera and species fill two numbers (9 and 

 21) of the Proceedings of the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XXXV,, issued 

 respectively December, 1899, and April, 1900. 

 Dr. Thaxter makes the welcome announcement 

 that it is his intention to publish as soon as 

 practicable a supplement to his ' Monograph of 

 the Laboulbeniaceae ' with figures of all the 

 species. 



physiology of tobacco. 



An interesting paper entitled ' Physiological 

 Studies of Connecticut Leaf Tobacco,' by Dr. 

 Oscar Loew, contains much of importance to 

 the general plant physiologist, as well as to the 

 practical grower of tobacco, as may be seen 

 from the author's ' conclusions' which we quote 

 in full. "Various problems relating to the 

 manufacture of tobacco have been touched 

 upon in this report, some of them within easy 

 reach of solution, others of a very difiicult 

 nature. The prevention of fungous attacks in 

 the barn or in the cases, the regulation of the 

 temperature and humidity in the curing proc- 

 ess, and the proper control of the sweat are 

 points that can easily be settled. In many 

 cases the replacement of the stalk-curing by 

 the single-leaf curing process may prove a 

 financial success. But there are other prob- 

 lems of a more delicate and difiicult nature, as 

 the prevention of the mosaic or calico disease 



