OCTOBKB 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



479 



THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF MUTANTS — A 

 SUGGESTION 



In Science for September 13, 1907, Pro- 

 fessor Spalding calls attention to the im- 

 portance of Dr. MacDougal's discovery that 

 new modifications can be made in plants by 

 injecting various substances into the capsules 

 of plants before the ovules are fertilized. I 

 wish to suggest the desirability of a study of 

 these artificially produced plant forms with a 

 view to ascertaining whether the production of 

 the new forms is coincident with a change in 

 the number of chromosomes. It has recently 

 been shown that deVries's Enothera gigas has 

 twice as many chromosomes as the parent 

 species, and a year ago I suggested that per- 

 haps all of deVries's mutants may differ in 

 a similar way from Enothera lamarhiana. 



It is a very interesting question, should we 

 find these mutations due to increase or de- 

 crease in the number of chromosomes, just 

 what importance these mutations have in 

 evolutionary progress. It certainly seems to 

 me that we are a little hasty in ascribing to 

 them fundamental importance. So far as we 

 have any evidence on the subject, it seems to 

 me that these mutants must be looked upon 

 as aberrant forms, and in a certain sense de- 

 generates. That all evolutionary progress de- 

 pends upon these so-called mutations seems to 

 me to be entirely out of the question, assum- 

 ing, of course, a change in the number of 

 chromosomes to be at the basis of mutation 

 in the deVriesian sense. Too many distantly 

 related species have the same number of 

 chromosomes. 



W. J. Spillman 



U. S. Depaetment of Agricultuee 



AN ALLEGED DIPHTHERITIC ANTITOXIN 



To THE Editor of Science: Notwithstand- 

 ing previous denials on my part in the local 

 papers and before the Columbus Academy of 

 Medicine letters are being sent out by a local 

 firm connecting my name with an alleged 

 discovery of a new diphtheritic antitoxin. 



I wish to state that such statements are 

 absolutely unwarranted, as I have made no 

 tests or investigations of any character con- 



cerning the preparation, nor have any such 

 tests been made in my laboratories. 



A. M. Bleile 

 Depaetiiekt of Physiology, 

 Ohio State University 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



heart rot of sassafras sassafras CAUSED BY 

 FOMES RIBIS' 



So far as known, the tree Sassafras sassafras 

 has very few enemies among the fungi, and is 

 commonly very free from their attacks. It 

 has, however, been found by the writer to be 

 quite seriously affected in Missouri by one of 

 the Polypori. The fungus which has thus 

 been found attacking the Sassafras has been 

 submitted to Professor Chas. H. Peck, and was 

 pronounced to be Fames Eihis (Schum.) 

 Gillet. This fungus commonly occurs only 

 upon the stems and roots of various species of 

 small shrubby plants. It has been found oc- 

 curring on rose bushes, currant bushes, and on 

 living stems of Symplwricarpiis occidentahs. 

 The occurrence of this fungus upon any of 

 the large trees seems to be anomalous, yet in 

 a limited district it has been found thus occur- 

 ring very plentifully and destructively. 



Fames Bihis occurs quite generally through- 

 out European countries, but it does not seem 

 to be at all common in America. It has been 

 reported from as widely separated points as 

 Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey and New York. 



A careful examination showed that the 

 sporophores of this fungus were always located 

 at points where the heartwood of the tree had 

 been exposed either by the breaking of 

 branches or the splitting of the main trunk. 

 No exception to this rule was observed, 

 although the search was quite careful through- 

 out the locality where the fungus was found. 

 The smallest tree which was found to be 

 affected was about five inches in diameter, and 

 had abundant heartwood in the stem and older 

 branches. The Sassafras has but few annual 

 rings of sapwood, and thus reaches an age at 

 which it has heartwood very early. It is be- 

 lieved that in this disease it is absolutely 



^-Published witli permission of the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. 



