JULT 31, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



169 



cipal advantage of the present volume is that 

 it does make the keys available for students 

 who have no knowledge of German or Latin, 

 but such students are out of place in mycol- 

 ogy or pathology. 



Speaking of the work as a whole one is im- 

 pressed with the number of its typographical 

 errors. It is not difficult to find pages with 

 three to four each, and their character leads 

 one to suspect that they are not entirely 

 printer's errors. Many are more striking 

 than the use of a wrong letter in a word. The 

 following serve to illustrate the type: host for 

 bast; perithetical for perithecial; epithelium 

 for epithecium (see also author abbreviations). 



There is an apparent tendency to exclude 

 from consideration the species of fungi para- 

 sitic only on wild hosts of no economic im- 

 portance, although this practise has not been 

 rigidly followed. In genera containing many 

 species these appear to be presented in kaleido- 

 scopic succession — if there is any logical ar- 

 rangement either alphabetical, host, phylo- 

 genetic or according to importance we have 

 not been able to detect it. The descriptions 

 are especially full in those groups which have 

 been monographed somewhat recently. 



Attention will be directed to a few of the 

 remarkable statements which have attracted 

 the writer's attention. " Tubeuf ranks as 

 hemi-parasites those organisms that usually 

 are parasites, but may sometimes become 

 saprophytic, and as hemi-saprophytes such as 

 are usually parasitic, but may exceptionally 

 become saprophytic." It is fortunate that this 

 definition is followed by the statement that 

 " these distinctions are of little import " (p. 

 2). Teachers of botany will probably be im- 

 pressed by the rarity with which hypha is used 

 in the text, and the apparent application of 

 the term to spore-bearing branches only (pp. 60 

 and 477). The statement that "the oogonium 

 becomes free just before conjugation " (p. 74) 

 gives a mixture of isogamy and heterogamy 

 in the terms employed, while the information 

 that " sexual spores (zygotes) are produced 

 through the union of the two like gametangia " 

 (p. 102) could have been presented in less ob- 

 jectionable form. The description of Selero- 



tinia trifoliorum Erik, is followed by the 

 strange statement : " Unknovm on clover " 

 (p. 143). 



In the face of the general consensus of opin- 

 ion in America that the chestnut blight 

 fungus belongs to Endothia, it seems strange 

 that the author accepts Eehm's classification. 

 According to the description of the blight 

 fungus the perithecia are " deeply embedded 

 in the inner bark," the summer spores are 

 " pale yellowish," and " the perithecia appear 

 in abundance upon or in cracks in the bark, 

 extruding their spores in greenish to yellow 

 threads" (p. 208). This is indeed quite a 

 contrast to the true condition: perithecial 

 stromata erumpent from beneath the peri- 

 derm, ascospores forcibly expelled, and pycno- 

 spores hyaline. 



The student's conception of the morphology 

 of the promycelium will be a little mixed 

 when he reads : " In every species the my- 

 celium eventually gives rise to teliospores, 

 which produce in germination four basidia, 

 either remaining within the spore-cell or 

 borne in the air on a short promycelium, each 

 basidium supporting a single-stalked or sessile 

 basidiospore " (p. 324) . " Morphologically 

 the promycelium is a basidium bearing its 

 four sterigmata and four basidiospores " (p. 

 326) . In various species of rusts the " peridia 

 are scattered over the whole of the foliage " 

 (p. 356) or "in elongated patches" (p. 376). 



One may read that the hymenium of 

 Hi/dnum is " beset with pointed spines " (p. 

 414) ; that the young hyphse of Fames fraxi- 

 nophilus " are very fine and require an immer- 

 sion lens for observation " (p. 434) ; also of 

 the " Oospora forms of the Erysiphales " (p. 

 474). 



The statement that "Phleospora moricola 

 (Pass.) Sacc. on Morus is a conidial form of 

 Septogloeum mori," another imperfect fun- 

 gus, is hardly in accord with mycological prac- 

 tise. 



Considering the chaotic condition of my- 

 cology, it is not surprising that some species 

 are duplicated or listed under the wrong gen- 

 era. We may note, for example, that Septoria 

 cerasina Pk. (p. 520) is described without any 



