172 General Notes. [ March, 
Report on Mt. St. Elias. By W. H. Dall. (From the U. S. Coast Survey Report 
for 1875.) With a map and sketches. Washington, D. C. July, 1875. 4to, pp. 32. 
Notes on the Yucca Borer (Megathymus yucca). By C. V. Riley. (Trans. Acad. 
Sciences, St. Louis, January, 1876.) St Louis. 1876. 8vo, pp. 2 
Note sur les Mollusques de la Formation Post-Pliocéne de l’Acadie. Par G. F. 
Matthew. Bruxelles. 1875: 8vo, pp. 19. 5 
On the Surface Geology of New Brunswick. By G. F. Matthew. (Canadian 
Naturalist, vii., No. 8. 
Remarks on the Variation in Form of the Family Strepomatidæ. With Descrip- 
tions of New Species. By A. G. Wetherby. Cincinnati. 1875. 8vo, pp. 12. With 
a plate. 
escriptive Catalogues of the Photographs of the United States Geological Survey 
of the Territories for the Years 1869 to 1875 inclusive. Second Edition. W. H. Jack- 
son, photographer. Washington, D. C. 1875. 8vo, pp. 81. 
GENERAL NOTES. 
BOTANY.! 
AsTRAGALUS Rospinsit GRAY. — As some botanists seem to sup- 
pose this plant extinct, it may be of interest to them to know that the 
station has never been lost, and that at any time since Oakes used to col- 
lect it until, now, fine specimens have been easily obtained. It is abun- 
dant over the very limited area where it grows, and has never been found 
anywhere else, I believe. Few plants are so exceedingly restricted in 
their range, for its habitat consists only of a space about five hundr 
feet long and from fifty to one hundred feet wide. This is on one bank 
of the Winooski River, near Burlington, where the limestone ledges are 
overflowed by every freshet. This limestone is very hard and compact, 
and full of crevices which are filled with sand mixed with a little mold. 
In these crevices, or less often in hollows that have been filled with earth, 
the astragalus grows, sending its roots from six inches to a foot or even 
more down into the crevice. It does not, so far as I have noticed, ever 
grow higher on the bank of the river than the spring floods reach, nor 
away from the exposed limestone rock. Potentilla fruticosa is found 
abundantly in the same location, and less abundantly Anemone multifida 
and Campanula rotundifolia, and also several less numerous species of 
Composite, Salix, etc. —G. H. PERKINS. 
Tue Poraro-BLIGHT.— A very important step has recently been 
made in our knowledge of the history of this disease. It is about thirty 
years since it was first clearly traced by M. Montagne in France, 
the Rev. M. J. Berkeley in England, to a parasitic fungus, Botrytis or 
Peronospora infestans, which first attacks the haulms and leaves, and 
eventually causes the decay of the tubers. Two modès of asexual re- 
production, by means of “ simple spores” or conidia, and actively moving 
Swarmspores or zodspores which penetrate the s:omata of the host, have 
1 Conducted by Pror. G. L. GOODALE. 
