266 



Mycologia 



the loss was sometimes as high as 30 per cent. The disease was 

 later found at many points in Florida and elsewhere. The causal 

 organism appeared to be Bacterium solanacearum, which attacks 

 a number of different plants. 



" A Handbook of British Lichens," by Annie Lorrain Smith, 

 containing 158 pages of text and 90 text figures, has just been 

 published by the British Museum. The object of the book is to 

 supply a portable guide to the determination of lichens in the 

 field. The 128 genera included are briefly described, while the 

 species are distinguished by keys only. There is an introduction 

 in which the morphology, ecology, etc., of lichens are discussed, 

 and a glossary of the chief terms employed. 



" Insects Injurious to Deciduous Shade Trees and Their Con- 

 trol," by Jacob Kotinsky, published as Farmers' Bulletin 1169 0 * 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, is of interest to mycologists 

 because of the close connection found to exist between insects 

 and fungi when it comes to the treatment of diseases. In the 

 gall-insects, which rarely affect the vitality of a tree, the con- 

 nection between insect and host is exceedingly close. In one 

 group the mother inserts an acid with the egg, but in all other 

 groups it is the growth of the larva that provides the stimulus, 

 the contact between the insect and the surrounding plant tissue 

 being very intimate. 



Last January I secured, near Greenville, South Carolina, sev- 

 eral specimens which Dr. Burt, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 identified as Tricholoma terreum. One of the specimens which 

 I kept in Greenville had been pierced by a pine needle. The 

 other specimens kept well for a week or more, seeming to have 

 the consistency of a Russula, but this pierced specimen rotted 

 where the needle pierced it. Instead of the smell being objection- 

 able it was sweet and would have made a good cologne odor. I 

 do not know whether the fungus produced this odor from the 

 pine needle or whether the needle caused the mushroom to give 

 the odor. The needle was of the long variety peculiar, I believe, 

 to the Piedmont section. — E. D. Hallock 



