1880. | in the United States in the year 1879. 863 
of the same Variety.” Of Indian corn and wax beans, two lots 
of each were obtained from widely different localities ; these were 
so planted as to secure cross-fertilization in certain cases, and fer- 
tilization without crossing in others, The result was shown to 
be highly favorable to the crossed plants. 
Dr. M. E. Elrod’s paper on the “ Seeds of the Violet and other 
plants as Projectiles,’ in the February NATURALIST, and that of 
R. E. C. Stearns in the July number of the same journal, on “ The 
Form of Seeds as a Factor in Natural Selection,” contribute 
somewhat to our knowledge of the means for the distribution of 
the seeds of plants. 
Of other papers in this department, the following may be men- 
tioned: “ Trimorphism in Lithospermum canescens,’ by Mr. E. F. 
Smith in the Botanical Gazette for June; “ Sexual differentiation 
in Epigea repens,” by Mr. L. F. Ward; “ Note on the movement 
of the stamens of Sabdatia angularis,’ by the same author, both 
read before the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science; “ Objects of Sex and Odor in Flowers,” by Thomas 
Meehan, read before the A. A. A. S., and printed in the Scientific 
American, Oct. 1879, pointing out that “variation is not merely 
an incident of form, but that it must necessarily be a primary 
object in nature; that the institution of sex is but an incident in 
the primary law of variation; and that all the machinery for fer- 
tilization and cross-fertilization is with the object of causing `a 
change of form far in the future, and with no material bearing on 
the good of the individual, or even of the race.” Here should 
be mentioned Prof. Tuckerman’s paper, “The Question of the 
Gonidia of Lichens” (Am. Four. Sci. and Arts, March, 1879), a 
review of Dr. Mink’s recently published observations. The re- 
viewer gives a short résumé of the lichen-gonidia controversy, and 
records some observations of his own, which he regarded as con- 
firmatory of those of Dr, Minks. 
B. Systematic Botany.—a. Fungi—One of the most important 
_ contributions in this department is Mr. C. H. Peck’s “ Report of 
the Botanist” in the Thirty-first Annual Report of the New York 
State Museum of Natural History. This report, although bear- 
ing date of January, 1878, was actually not published until 1879. 
Many new species of Fungi (mostly Basidiomycetes and Ascomy- 
cetes) are described. One of the most interesting of these is the 
one which lives parasitically within the abdomen of the seventeen- 
