214 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



owners of forests and woodlands, and others interested, are invited 

 to send specimens for exhibition. Forms of entry can be obtained 

 on application to the Secretary of the Royal Agricultural Society, 

 16, Bedford Square, London, W.C. 



If any testimony were needed as to the importance to students 

 of Mr. Massee's Text-book of Plant Diseases (Duckworth & Co., 6s. 

 net), it would be amply afforded by the call for the third edition, 

 which has just been issued. There is no change in the text of the 

 volume, but after the preface some eight pages have been inter- 

 polated, bearing on some new and serious outbreaks of disease. 

 One on potatoes, due, the author says, to (Edomyces leproides, lives 

 in the soil and causes rotting of the tubers. Another pest, also due 

 to a fungus, of which we had something to say in our last issue 

 (p. 168), is the famous American Gooseberry Mildew, Mr. Massee 

 recognizes to some extent the serious nature of this disease, but 

 still inclines to the opinion that it is no new thing. He again cites 

 the testimony of " people in this country who state that they have 

 known the disease for the last thirty, or even fifty, years," and 

 their statements, he says, have not been proved to be wrong ; he 

 also jeers at the idea that the fungus had been introduced from 

 America to the Continent, or from the Continent to this country. 

 Mycologists on the Continent are of a different opinion ; they hold, 

 on what satisfies them as sufficient evidence, that the fungus was 

 brought from America about the year 1900. Mr. Salmon tells us 

 that in the district in Worcestershire where the disease has broken 

 out, bushes had been imported from the Continent, and that these 

 bushes were diseased, while the native-grown were healthy. Again, 

 Mr. Massee says that in this country the disease, as a rule, 

 confines itself to the tips of the branches ; but that is certainly not 

 the case in Ireland. From Co. Down it is reported that "the 

 disease is very prevalent this year (1905), some growers having 

 every bush affected, and the fruit rendered quite unsaleable." It 

 is difficult to understand why Mr. Massee should insist on treating 

 so lightly this very serious outbreak of disease ; but we can join 

 with him in heartily desiring that it may prove to be of but small 

 importance, and that we may have no fear for the future safety of 

 our gooseberries. 



A short but interesting paper has just been published (in the 

 Ohio Naturalist for March) by R. F. Griggs on Cymathere, a genus 

 of Laminar iace (By which occurs on the north-west coast of America. 

 Its only species, C. triplicata J. Ag., grows abundantly at the 

 Minnesota Seaside Station on Vancouver's Island, in sheltered 

 nooks out of reach of the surge, forming in that respect a marked 

 contrast to such genera as Postelsia and Lessoniopsis. Cymathere 

 only succeeds well in situations which are never uncovered by the 

 tide — a fact that adds materially to the difficulty of collecting the 

 young forms. Mature plants may reach a length of four metres 

 and a breadth of twenty-two centimetres, though most plants are 

 smaller than this. The sporangia occur at the base of the lamina 

 on both sides, and they extend much further up the grooves than 

 on the ridges of the plicse. The stipe is wholly without mucilage 



