1890.] Botany. 1197 
fungi. All the fungi known to affect each species are given, making 
in some cases a long list ; as, for example, in the beech (Fagus ferru- 
ginea), which has 103 ; the white oak (Quercus alba), 90: the button- 
wood (Platanus occidentalis), 37 ; the white elm (U/mus americana), 
24; the white ash (Fraxinus americana), 31; the sassafras (Sassafras 
officinale), 42. It would be an interesting inquiry to investigate ‘the 
relation between the structure and habits of the hosts and the number 
of fungi which live upon them. A casual examination appears to show 
that those species which are most widely distributed are most affected 
by fungi. Woody plants appear to be somewhat more troubled than 
are their herbaceous relatives, and there seem to be more upon large 
plants than upon small ones.—CHaRLEs E. BESSEY. 
Some Bad Station Botany.—The experiment stations have 
in the main been fortunate in their botanical publications, and very 
little has gone out from them which is misleading or unscientific. Now 
and then a worker in one line steps over into that belonging to some 
one else, and then the results are not so satisfactory. We have before 
us a good illustration of this in.a recent bulletin from the Ohio station, 
in which the agriculturist discusses ‘‘ Smut in Wheat,’’ meaning there- 
by the so-called ‘‘ stinking smut’’ of the genus Tilletia. After quoting 
Professor Henslow as the authority for the remarkable (?) fact that 
“the spores have been accurately measured, and the diameter found to 
be one sixteen-hundredth of an inch’’ (as if any freshman in a 
botanical laboratory couldn't have measured the Ohio spores !), he 
quotes some calculations as to the number of spores in a single grain 
of wheat, and the still more remarkable statement ** that it is hardly pos- 
sible to conjecture how many sporules each spore contains, since they 
are scarcely distinguishable under very high power of the microscope.’’ 
This last is about as bad as the usual newspaper science, but we cer- 
tainly expected something better in an article from a station worker. 
This is not agricultural science; it is sheer ignorance.—CHARLES E. 
BESSEY. 
Wheat Smut.—In pleasing contrast to the work done in some 
experiment stations is that by Professor Kellerman and Mr. Swingle, 
of the botanical department of the Kansas station. A recent bulletin 
on the fungicides for stinking smut of wheat is a model of good work. 
It is modestly called a “ preliminary " report, but the subject is as 
well wrought out as in most so-called ‘* final’’ repo 
After a brief but most excellent statement of the main points in the 
life-history of the fungus, the details of a number of experiments are 
given, the object of which was to prevent the smut by treatment of the 
seed before planting. Fifty-one different treatments were used with 
