1884. ] Botany. 73 
of about the same consistency and appearance as a piece of deer 
skin. 
My friends, Messrs. Everhart and Haines, incline to the opin- 
ion that this is the Byssus sepiicus of Withering, and quote de- 
= scriptions of that production which is said to “ grow most luxu- 
riantly in bins or on wooden shelves in cellars where wine has 
been spilt, hanging down in the form of a jelly bag or of a cylin- 
der with a globe at the end, to the length of a foot or more. It 
is easily crushed, and then seems principally to consist of water 
adhering to the fingers.” It is quite probable that this may be 
the genuine Byssus septicus, but it is evidently only the mycelium 
of some fungus, being entirely without fruit of any kind, and of 
the same nature as the curious fungoid growths in old abandoned 
mines and subterranean galleries, To what species this mycelium 
pertains it is of course impossible to say, though it is not improb- 
ably the mycelium of Polyporus destructor Fr., which in confined 
and, damp places is known to luxuriate in various abnormal 
growths. —F. B. Ellis, Newfield, N. F. 
ErratumM.—By an annoying typographical error on page 1280 
of the December NATURALIST, ninth line from the bottom, the 
word Lxtomophthora was misspelled. 
Botanica Notes.—Dr. Farlow, in the November Botanical Ga- 
zette, concludes his interesting and valuable “ Enumeration of the 
eronosporee of the United States.” It is in reality much more 
than an enumeration, for every species (thirty-six in all) is described, 
and for each the synonymy is given, as well as reference to the 
€xsiccati and literature. The species are distributed as follows: 
Phytophthora, 1; Peronospora, 31; Cystopus, 4. The pub- 
` lishers of the Botanical Gasette offer a prize of fifty dollars for the 
best life-history of any plant, the result of original investigations. 
e papers are to be finished on or before the ist of Nov., 1884. 
Further particulars may be learned by addressing the editor of 
the Gazette, Crawfordsville, Indiana. A similar prize of from 
sixty to one hundred dollars for the best paper, and of fifty dol- 
lars for the second best, is also offered by the Boston Society of 
Natural History, as announced in the advertising pages of the 
NATURALIST, Surely biological botany should no longer lag.— 
Jr. Vasey’s “ Grasses of the United States,” recently issued as a spe- 
Cial report from the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 
IS one of the most valuable papers which that department has is- 
Sued. Synopses and descriptions of the tribes and genera of our 
native grasses are given, and under each genus all our indigenous 
Species are catalogued. The arrangement is in accordance with 
that of Bentham and Hooker in their Genera Plantarum. The 
whole number of genera is 114, while of species there are enu- 
Merated 580. The Catalogue of Canadian Plants, Part 1, Poly- 
Petalze, by Professor John Macoun, which has lately appeared as 
