1885. ] Botany. 171 
while not less open'to the higher plants, are learning to look for 
plants of all kinds, from the simplest protophytes to the most 
conspicuous of phanerogams, We may hope some day to seea 
manual of botany which will include within its covers descrip- 
tions of all the species of the region it covers. 
The Preliminary List of the Parasitic Fungi of Wisconsin, by 
Professor Trelease, must prove a considerable aid and strong in- 
centive to the collection of Fungi in Wisconsin. About 270 
species are recorded, a large list when we remember that it is 
confined to the parasitic forms only. Most of the species were col- 
lected about Madison by the author, and all, with but “one or two 
exceptions,” are preserved as herbarium specimens. Throughout 
the list hosts and localities are given, and in many cases these are 
accompanied by valuable critical notes, indicating thorough and 
careful work. 
The Peronosporez of the list number twenty-five species, of 
which four belong to the genus Cystopus, one to Phytophthora 
and twenty to Peronospora. The Perisporiaceze number twenty 
species, the Uredinez sixty-five (not counting isolated Uredo and 
zecidial forms, seven of the former and twenty-seven of the latter) 
and the Ustilagineæ twenty-two species.—C. Æ. Bessey. 
VARIATION IN CULTIVATED PLANTS.— If seed of the various 
sorts of the cabbage family be planted alongside each other, a 
resemblance is observed between all the seedlings at a certain 
date ; it is only as growth proceeds that the development begins 
to differentiate differences. It seems probable, through a study 
of the law of breeding, that the period of divergence marks the 
period at which original selection commenced in order to obtain 
our present forms. If this observation be substantiated, then by 
careful study of seedling development we shall be able to deter- 
mine points of departure at which human guidance shall be ena- 
bled to direct in line with the tendencies of the plant. This study 
of plant growth after the method used in zodlogy, the study of 
embryology so to speak, not the term “ embryology” as applied 
to nature’s plant but that of man’s plant, the period between the 
seed and the differentiation from the natural type, offers much 
promise of good results, and it seems quite probable that as we 
attempt to influence the development of the plant before or at 
the time of the differentiation into the acquired properties of 
the mature plant we can initiate a new series of selections in cer- 
tain varieties whose root, bulb, stem and foliage finds use.—Æ£. 
L. Sturtevant in 2d Ann. Rept. N. Y. Agri. Expr. Station. 
BorantcaL Notes. — The post-graduate course of study in 
botany offered by Syracuse University is significant of changed 
notions as to what advanced work in botany consists of. The 
course is two years in length and includes vegetable histology, 
physiology, the study of phanerogams, pteridophytes, mosses, 
