254 General Notes. 
natural history specimens, to be transmitted by mail, without sub- 
jecting them to other than fourth-class rate of postage, labels bear- 
ing the written name of the specimens, locality and date of collec- 
tion, and the collector’s name—where these inscriptions are wholly 
for purpose of identification or description.” 
Ordinary botanical labels which had been submitted by Dr. 
Barnes were accepted as permissible, 
THE GERMINATION OF DoppER.—In some recent investigations 
on germinating Dodder (Cuscuta gronovii) we have observed an 
interesting fact in regard to the manner of separating itself from the 
soil which we have not found mentioned elsewhere. When the 
plant has reached something adapted to its needs as a parasite— 
Forsythia viridissima in our observations—it winds about it loosely 
at first, then after the manner of a tendril quickly contracts, bring- 
ing its coils close to the host, that the haustoria may penetrate the 
bark. This contraction pulls up the root, leaving it loosely hang- 
ing by the host, sometimes half an inch above the soil, where it 
withers and dries.—Henrietta E. Haaker, Botanical Lab., Mt. 
Holyoke Sem., Feb. 17, 1888. 
THE FossIıL FORESTS OF THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK. 
—At the February meeting of the Washington Biological Society, 
Professor Knowlton gave an aceount of a visit to these fossil forests, 
which are located mostly in the northeastern portion of the park, 
a locality rarely visited by tourists. The largest isolated trunk 
seen was twenty-six feet in circumference, without the bark, and 
twelve feet in height. In the edge of a cliff trunks are exposed to 
a height of thirty feet. Specimens from about 300 of these trees 
are now being identified. They represent about twenty species, 
including the genera Pinus, Sequoia, and Taxus. 
New SPECIES or Urepinex.—At the February meeting of the 
Washington Biological Society a paper was read by B. T. Galloway 
describing seven new western Uredinew collected by Tracy and 
Evans. in 1887, and named by Tracy and Galloway. They were 
Uromyces arizonica, Puccinia fragilis, Puccinia caulicola, Puccina 
vertisepta, Æcidium draba, Æcidium heliotropii, and Æcidium ellisite 
It is to be hoped that the authors will also publish their descrip- 
tions in the Journal of Mycology, in which, in our opinion, all 
descriptions of our fungi ought to appear. 
BoranicaL News.—The announcement is made that Dr. Lorenzo 
G. Yates, of Santa Barbara, California, with the assistance of J. G. 
Baker, of Kew (England), will soon bring out a book entitled 
« All Known Ferns,” which will consist of an alphabetical list 
