9 o6 General Notes. [November, 



Botanical Notes.— In the September Torrey Bulletin E. L. 

 Greene describes seven new species of Californian Compositae, viz : 

 Pentachceta alsiuoidcs. Ham ouia lobbii, Ham onia clevelandi, 

 Hemitonia ccphalotes. Hemitonia oppositifolia, Verbesina venosa, 



Microseris attenuata. J. B. Ellis continues his descriptions of 



North American Fungi in the same number, giving the charac- 

 ters of four new species, viz : Valsa lutescens, V. binoculata. V. 



tuberculosa, V. venusta, V. ampelopsidis. Three new grasses 



are described by Dr. Vasey in the August-September Botanical 

 •Gazette, Muhlenbergia setifolia from Western Texas, M.glomerata, 

 var. brevifolia from South-eastern California, and M. sylvatica var. 



californica from the San Bernardino mountains, Cal. In the 



same journal Dr. Gray names a new plant of interesting affinities, 

 Parishella californica. It is related to Nemacladus ramossissnui s, 

 and must consequently fall into Bentham and Hooker's tribe 

 Cyphieae of the order Campanulaceae. The genus is dedicated 



to the Parish brothers, the well-known botanical collectors. 



The July Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science contains two 

 important botanical papers, one by F. O. Bower on the Germina- 

 tion and Embryogeny of Gut turn g . i m m, and the other by Profes- 

 sor Huxley on Saprolegnia in its relation to the Salmon Disease. 

 In the latter the eminent author, after careful investigation, con- 

 cludes that " the growth of the fungus is the cause of the morbid 



affection of the epidermis, and not its consequence." Thomas 



Christy's New Commercial Plants and Drugs, No. 6, a pamphlet of 

 about one hundred pages, and published by Christy & Co., Lon- 

 don, contains much valuable information on the vegetable fibers 

 produced in tropical countries. Six lithographic plates of fibers 

 prepared by Vetillart, of Paris, accompany the pamphlet, and 

 add much to its value. Cross and longitudinal sections magnified 

 300 diameters are shown of the fibers of flax, hemp, jute, cotton, 

 china-grass, New Zealand flax, Mudar bark {Calotropis gigantea), 

 paper mulberry, Nepal paper-plant {Daphne papy raced) Esparto 

 grass, Pita (Agave americand), Manilla hemp, Tecum palm, bow- 

 string hemp (Sanseviera zeylanicd), pineapple and "white fir. 

 The most important papers in the Journal of the Linnean So- 

 ciety, No. 121, are the Action of carbonate of ammonia on Chlor- 

 ophyll-bodies, by Charles Darwin, and Researches on the life-his- 

 tory oiHemiUii vastatrix, the fungus of the " coffee-leaf disease 

 by H. Marshall Ward. The latter holds that " it may be fairly 

 considered proved that ' leaf disease ' here, as in so many other 

 <;ases now known, is not antecedent to the fungus, but is conse- 

 quent upon the injurious action of the mycelium." " No grouna 

 exists for considering the fungus as a ' product of vitiated plant- 

 life,* or « of the sap,' and just as little reason is there for the view 

 that a sickly plant is prone to infection. Nay, experiments prove 

 conclusively that a vigorous and healthy West Indian tree is a 

 easily infected as one from Ceylon, and it has also been shown 



