189 



chestnut. A related species occurring on the European chestnut 

 is quite different in character and totally different in habit. I 

 have shown specimens to many mycologists, both in Europe and 

 America, and they all pronounce it new to them and undescribed. 

 It belongs to Diapoftlie, a large genus of the pyrepomycetes, 

 whose species are as a rule confined to dead wood and are not 

 parasitic. The name I have chosen refers to its very destructive 

 parasitic habit. A detailed description follows : 



Diaporthe parasitica sp. nov. 



Pustules numerous, erumpent, at first yellow, changing to 

 brown at maturity : perithecia usually 10—20 in number, closely 

 clustered, flask-shaped, deeply imbedded in the stroma in the 

 inner bark, scarcely visible to the unaided eye ; necks long, 

 slender, curved, with thick black walls and rather prominent 

 ostiola : asci oblong-clavate, 45-50 x 9 p-, 8-spored ; sporidia usu- 

 ally biseriate, hyaline, oblong, rounded at the ends, often slightly 

 constricted, uniseptate, 9— 10 x 4—5 /^. Summer spores very 

 minute, i x 2-3 fx, pale-yellowish, cylindrical, slightly curved, 

 discharged in twisted threads as in Cytospora. 



Found upon living or recently killed branches of the American 

 chestnut, Castmiea dentata. Type collected by W. A. Murrill in 

 Bronx Park, N. Y. City, November 26, 1905. Known also from 

 New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the District of Columbia and 

 Virginia. 



New York Botanical Garden. 



SHORTER NOTES 



A NEWLY INTRODUCED Plant IN Rhode Island. — Some eight 

 or ten years ago, as near as I can recall, there appeared on waste- 

 land, near our general passenger station in Providence, a few 

 plants of Grindelia sqiiarrosa, belonging, as every one knows, in 

 the far West. There are now several acres of the plant here, and 

 its increase is deterred only by building operations in the neigh- 

 borhood. If ofifences must come, in the shape of weeds, it is 

 well to have them handsome — and this Grindeha with its globu- 

 lar, many-scaled, sticky involucre and light golden rays, is a 

 beauty. In the same region the Russian thistle has a hold and 



