June 15, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



923 



fully satisfied the demands in the case. Dr. 

 Green approves of this decision of Torrey's, 

 and speaks of the principle involved as ' a law 

 so plain that it never seemed to need formal 

 and verbal enactment until within the last 

 decade.' He holds that it is far better- 'to 

 name one good genus after a man ' than ' to 

 use his name as a merely convenient founda- 

 tion for the making of a dozen different 

 names ' ; the first he considers to be a real 

 honor, while of the latter he asks ' is not that 

 to openly dishonor him ? ' Thus he accepts 

 Washingtonia, but rejects Neowashingtonia, 

 which he characterizes as ' impossible in any 

 but a weak and degenerate system of nomen- 

 clature.' 



SEASIDE LABORATORIES. 



Attention is now directed to the increasing 

 opportunities for the study of plant [and 

 animal] life at waterside laboratories. For 

 those who can make the trip probably no more 

 attractive combination of camp life and a 

 study of an unfamiliar vegetation can be 

 found than is afforded by the Minnesota Sea- 

 side Station on the westerly shore of Van- 

 couver Island, whose session begins July 8, 

 and closes August 18. It is under the di- 

 rection of Professor MacMillan, of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota. — • Much like it, but 

 much nearer, is the Biological Laboratory on 

 Long Island, at Cold Spring Harbor, where 

 from July 5 to August 18 instruction will be 

 given in various lines of botany, especially of 

 the lower forms. The botanical work here is 

 under the direction of Professor Johnson, of 

 Johns Hopkins University. ■ — At Woods Hole, 

 Massachusetts, the nineteenth session of the 

 Marine Biological Laboratory is announced 

 to open June 1 and to extend to October 1, 

 with instruction in botany from July 5 to 

 August 16. The opportunities for investiga- 

 tion in this long-established laboratory are 

 such as should induce many an advanced stu- 

 dent to spend the summer there. The botan- 

 ical work the present season is to be under 

 the supervision of Dr. George T. Moore, of 

 Washington, D. C. 



NOTES ON RECENT BOTANICAL PAPERS. 



Among noteworthy botanical papers may be 



mentioned Professor Pond's ' Incapacity of 

 the Date Endosperm for Self -digestion ' in 

 which the author shows by a series of careful 

 experiments that, contrary to the views of 

 many botanists, the endosperm of the date is 

 not capable of self -digestion, and that such 

 digestion as takes place in the seed is due 

 to the enzymes in the embryo. — Botanists 

 will remember Dr. A. F. Blakeslee as the dis- 

 coverer of the secret of zygospore formation 

 in the Black Moulds (Mucorineae), and will 

 learn with interest that he has been studying 

 in Germany at the University of Halle, where 

 he has continued his work on these interesting 

 plants. His distribution of the + and — 

 sexual strains of Phycomyces nitens and 

 other species of Mucorineae has made it pos- 

 sible for botanists everywhere to have zygo- 

 spores for laboratory study. The paper ac- 

 companying the specimens, entitled ' Studies 

 in Mucorineae,' is mainly an abridgment of 

 the full paper published a year or so ago in 

 the Proceedings of the American Academy 

 of Arts and Sciences. With it he gives, also, 

 a brief summary of an interesting paper on 

 ' Zygospore Germinations in the Mucorineae ' 

 originally published in the ' Annales Myco- 

 logici ' early this year, in which he shows 

 that such zygospores require a period of rest 

 before germination, and determines the sta- 

 bility and instability of the sexual strains in 

 Sporodinia, and Mucor. — Professor Under- 

 wood's paper, ' American Ferns, IV.' (reprint- 

 ed from the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 

 Cluh, 1906, pp. 189-205), includes notices of 

 forty species of Pteridophytes which have been 

 added to the flora of the United States since 

 the publication of the last edition (1900) of 

 his book ' Our Native Ferns and their Allies.' 

 — Professor Blankinship has brought together 

 a mass of interesting information in his paper 

 on the ' Native Economic Plants of Montana,' 

 published as Bulletin No. 56 of the Montana 

 Experiment Station. He has given especial 

 attention to the uses of these plants by 

 the Indians. — M. A. Howe's ' Phycological 

 Studies,' I. and II. (reprinted from the Bulle- 

 tin of the Torrey Botanical Cluh, 1905 and 

 1906) include new Chlorophyceae and Rho- 



