1881. ] Botany. 55 
and 1842, were planted and successfully germinated the past sum- 
mer.—In the same journal W. R. Gerard begins a “List of the: 
State and local floras of the United States ;” it gives the name, 
date and place of publication of all the important catalogues of 
plants ever published in this country. As such a list will be very 
useful to botanists, all who can should contribute to its complete- 
ness by communicating with the author, at 9g Waverly Place, New 
York city. Botanists will be glad to learn that the publication 
of Dr. T. F. Allen’s promising work, “ Characee Americane ” has 
been resumed. The parts now contain three plates each. “s 
manual of the mosses of the United States” is said to be in 
The authors hope to publish it sometime during 1881.—— 
Uhlworm’s “ Botanisches Centralblatt,” which covers much the 
same ground as the well known “ Botanischer Jahresbericht,” by 
Dr. Just, promises to be more valuable than the latter in one 
respect at least, and that is in the greater promptness of its pub- 
lication. Anderson, Farlow, Harvey, Lesquereux, Parry and 
Rothrock are the American contributors. The papers in the 
last number of Pringsheim’s Yahrbiicher fiir wissenschaftliche Bo- 
tanik are one by Bretfeld upon the healing of wounds, and the 
separation of the leaf from the twig; one by Miller upon the 
glands of the Cruciferze; one by Tangl upon the open passages 
between the cells in the endosperm of certain seeds (e. g., 
Strychnos nux-vomica, Areca oleracea and Phenix dactylifera); 
and one by Bachman upon the corky outgrowths upon leaves. 
The October number of the Quarterly Fournal of Muicroscop- 
tcal Science contains two botanical articles, viz: Bennett on the 
classification of Cryptogams, and Bennett and Murray on a re- 
formed system of terminology of the reproductive organs of 
Cryptogamia. The latter will be more fully noticed hereafter. 
Thomas Meehan has been studying the question of the 
cause of the timber line upon high mountains (Proc. A. N.S. of 
Philadelphia, Sept., 1880). On Gray’s peak the coniferous trees 
near the line of 11,000 feet are thirty to forty feet high, but at 
this line they cease as suddenly “as if a wood had been cut half 
away by a woodman’s axe.” Beyond the timber line the same 
species exist as dwarf, stunted trailing shrubs, often extending » 
fifteen hundred feet higher up the mountain side. These stunted 
plants appear never to produce seed! Mr. Meehan’s studies in 
the mountains of North Carolina and in the White mountains of 
New Hampshire, lead him to the conclusion that the stunted plants 
are the struggling offspring of trees which at no very remote 
period extended much further up the mountain than they do now. 
The reason for the disappearance of the large trees he believes to 
be due mostly to the disintegration of the rocks and the washing 
down of the earth from the higher elevations, thus starving the 
larger vegetation, while still affording conditions permitting the 
growth of smaller plants. 
