17 



top of the flower so that one can tell at a glance which flowers 

 have been visited. 



Tragedies are sometimes observ^ed, as bees or flies caught by 

 their feet by the pollen masses of the milkweed and held till 

 dead, or bumble-bees unable to get out of the pouches of the 

 lady's-slipper {Cyprepedium) and perishing in their beautiful 

 prisons. 



George T. Hastixgs, 



Acting Secretary, 



Meeting of November 29, 1922 



This meeting was held in the Morphological Laboratory of the 

 New York Botanical Garden, 



Dr. Barnhart exhibited a beautifully bound set of Michaux's 

 North American Sylva, recently presented to the Club by Mrs. 

 Richard M. Hoe. Thiii was the Philadelphia edition of 1859, 

 including three volumes of the English translation of Michaux's 

 original work, supplemented by two volumes written by Thomas 

 Nuttall. 



The first paper on the scientific program was by Dr. Mel T. 

 Cook, his subject being "Recent Studies of the Brown Rot of 

 the Peach." 



The brown rots of pomaceous and drupaceous fruits are due to 

 fungi, at least one of which was first described by Persoon in 

 1796 as Torula friictigena. In 1801 he transferred this to MonMia. 

 About the middle of the last century it was asserted that there 

 were two species in England, M . fructigena on pomaceous fruits 

 and M. cinerea on drupaceous fruits. In America, however, the 

 species which is especially destructive on drupaceous fruits and 

 rare on pomaceous was supposed to be the former. In 1902, 

 J. B. S. Norton discovered the perfect stage and assigned it to 

 Sclerotinia fructigena. In 1913, Matneny stated that it was 

 properly S. cinerea and this view has been very generally accepted 

 by the American mycologists. 



The fungus attacks (a) peach fruit, causing a rot; (b) peach 

 twigs, causing them to die back; (c) peach blossoms, causing a 

 blight, frequently supposed to be frost; (d) peach twigs and 

 branches causing canker. 



