318 General Notes. [May, 
GENERAL NOTES. 
BOTANY. i 
INFLUENCE OF MOISTURE ON VEGETATION.—Carefully conducted >- 
experiments (published by Paul Sorauer in the Botanische Zeitung, 
Jan., 1878) with spring barley yielded the following results: In 
dry air branching was greater than in moist, the mean figures 
standing at 2.77 and 2.37 respectively; length of leaves was 
greater in moist air in the ratio of 21.37 to 21.07, but the breadth 
was less (6.74 to 7.33); a moist atmosphere is more favorable to 
length of leaf-sheath in the proportion of 9.26 to 8.18, to growth 
of the principal stem (13.5 to 11.5) and to root development 
(26.8 to 23.9). It was found that the epidermal cells of the 
leaves were more numerous and broader, the cells between the 
stomates shorter, and the stomates themselves shorter in dry air. 
Also, that leaves developing in a moist atmosphere have com- 
paratively fewer stomates per millemetre of length. The ques- 
tion is worth further working out apropos of the relation between 
the minute structure of organs and their environment.— Journal 
of Botany. 
Bessy’s, Injurtous Fune1—This is an essay on the different 
species of blight or Erysiphei, which live chiefly on the leaves 
and sometimes on the stems of plants, and attack no less than 
fifty species of plants of much value in agriculture. The article 
contains descriptions of all but three species, the descriptions 1n- 
a few cases being original. Figures of ten species in sufficient 
detail for their identification accompany the text, which is 
extracted from the Seventh biennial report of the Iowa Agricul- 
tural College. 
t 
York Academy of Sciences, Mr. H. L. Fairchild gives some 
interesting results of studies showing that species of these fossils 
have been multiplied to too great an extent, from the imperfect 
nature of the fossils, owing to the great variability of the only 
_ characters that can be used by fossil botanists. 
REINSCH’S SAPROLEGNIEA: AND PARASITES IN DEsMID CELLS.— 
While this article from Pringsheim’s Yahrbuch contains observa- 
tions on certain new and very curious low plants, its chief inter- 
est to us are the figures and descriptions of sundry cytodes which 
have the power of penetrating the interior of desmids, and remind 
us of certain monera described some years ago by Cienkowski 
hundred species of minute plants and animals in this excellen 
drinking water. ae | 
