DIE BEDENTUNG DEB REINKULTUR 453 



Eiley, nor in similar places in North Devon and Cornwall have I 

 seen Montia growing in bogs properly so called, and certainly 

 never on Sphagnum, as Miss Armitage points out. But in the 

 West of England it flourishes well in the damp borders of rivulet 

 by roads and lanes, and especially in gravelly or sandy soil. Nor 

 have I ever seen Montia growing in bogs on the Continent. In 

 France and Switzerland it grows in similar places on siliceous 

 ground and occasionally in damp fields, and in Norway it is often 

 seen in damp farmyards among the mountains. Montia grew in a 

 typical habitat as high as 6000 ft. on the French side of the Mont 

 Cenis Pass, viz. on a wet slope between a stony path and stream 

 into which water was constantly trickling from the mountain 

 path. Here it was associated with Juncus trigliimis (eight inches 

 high) and a dozen good Carices, including such rarities as Carex 

 incurva Lightfoot, C. bicolor All., C.fatida AIL, C. capillaris, C. 

 vaginata, C. clavaformis, and C. ustulata^N ahlenb., a new station 

 for this extremely rare Carex in France. — H. S. Thompson. 



Potamogeton spathul^eformis Morong. — In his North Ameri- 

 can Naiadacece (1893), p. 27, Dr. Morong says that M neither of its 



supposed parents occurs in Mystic Pond." Mr 



Mr 







tifi 



Wm. Boott in Mystic Pond, i__ xjr ^ _ _ /7 



that in both the Gray Herbarium and in that of the N. England 

 Bot. Club there are characteristic specimens of P. heterophyllus 

 collected in Mystic Pond by Messrs. E. and C. E. Faxon." — 

 Arthur Bennett. 



NOTICE OF BOOK. 



Die Bedentungder Beinkultur. Von Dr. Oswald Eichter. Berlin : 

 Gebriider Borntraeger. Pp. vi. 128. Price 4 marks 40. 



Dr. Oswald Richter's paper reminds us of the unnecessary 

 and rather weary occupation of preaching to the already converted : 

 we had hardly thought that any one now required to be convinced 

 of the usefulness and desirability of pure culture experiments. 

 When the author recapitulates as he does, however, the various 

 occasions in which pure cultures have been successfully employed 

 to advance exact knowledge, he attempts a much more grateful 

 task. So viewed, his pamphlet is a compendium of information as 

 to the cases in which such cultures have achieved the desired 

 results. In the course of the work, instances are cited in many 

 different branches of botanical and zoological science in which 

 cultures have been absolutely essential for the elucidation of 

 various biological problems : in algae, fungi, bacteria and lichens 

 among plants, as w r ell as in protozoa among animals. The history 

 and results of the experiments have been gathered from literature 

 widely dispersed in various journals, and the student is thus 

 enabled to see at a glance what has been attempted and done in 



