: 1886. ] Botany. 1053 
diana (Coulter and Barnes), Cincinnati (James), Michigan 
(Wheeler and Smith), Ohio (Beardslee) Buffalo (Day), Cayuga, 
N. Y. (Dudley), nor even of Washington, D. C. (War It was 
discovered many years ago in Oneida county, N. Y., by Paine, 
who says of it: “ This plant and its companion [ Vazas major] are 
new to the interior, having been known hitherto as exclusively 
maritime ” (Eighteenth Ann. Rep. of the Regents of the Univ. of 
Fahrenheit.” 
The occurrence of this little plant in these widely separated 
localities is, to say the least, very interesting. From the sea- 
coast to the Oneida county, N. Y., station is fully 150 miles, 
thence to the Nebraska station is 1100 miles, and from the latter 
point to the National park is 700 miles. The distance from the 
Nebraska station to the Gulf of Mexico is about 800 miles.— 
Charles E. Bessey. 
THE ROUGHNESS OF CERTAIN Urepospores.—Recently while 
examining the uredospores of Puccinia coronata, a common rust 
of the oat, a student in my laboratory complained of the difficulty 
he had in making out the prickly (stachlig) surface of the spore- 
wall. The spores had been mounted in water in the usual way, 
- and it was with the utmost difficulty that any roughness of the 
surface could be made out, and when made out it was so faint as 
| to warrant the remark that “a character so difficult to be ob- 
served and so likely to be overlooked should not be made use of 
in descriptions.” The spores, in fact, appeared in most posi- 
_ tions to be perfectly smooth. e suggestion was made to ex- 
_ amine them mounted dry, when lo! the prickles appeared with 
_ the greatest distinctness. This hint may be worth remembering 
= in much of our work in botanical laboratories. — Charles È 
Bessey. 
ANOTHER “ TUMBLE-WEED.”—While riding through Phelps and 
_ Kearney counties, in South-central Nebraska, my attention was 
_ Called to great masses of some much-branched, white-woolly 
plant which occupied the ditches by the side of the railway. Its 
appearance was so odd and so different from anything I had ever 
Seen that I could not conceive what it could be. A fortunate 
Stop of the train outside the limits of a town allowed me to 
Secure specimens, which upon examination proved to be Psoralea 
enuifiora Pursh. The leaves had fallen and the naked branches, 
in drying, had diverged still more than in life, giving to the plant 
