Notes and Brief Articles 



269 



An excellent and handsomely illustrated article on Fomes 

 officinalis, by J. H. Faull, appeared in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Canadian Institute, Toronto, volume XI. The history, dis- 

 tribution and hosts, chemistry, dissemination, and effect on timber 

 are all fully treated. It produces a red heart-rot of conifers 

 characterized by the removal of the cellulose, by the fracturing 

 of the wood into rectangular masses, and the formation of mycelial 

 sheets in the crevices, the effects being not unlike those caused 

 by Polyporus Schweinitzii. It occurs on both living and dead 

 timber and belongs to the group commonly regarded as wound 

 parasites. The range of this species in America is reported by 

 the author to be as follows : British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, 

 Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, 

 Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Wyoming. 



The Report of the State Botanist of New York for 1916, by 

 Dr. H. D. House, formerly a student at the Garden, contains a 

 number of articles of interest to botanists in general. In addition 

 to the usual list of accessions and local flora notes, there is a long 

 list of species of lower fungi, either new or interesting; a list of 

 the fungi of Chautauqua County contributed by Dr. D. R. Sum- 

 stine ; and a list of the flowering plants and ferns of the Oneida 

 Lake region by Dr. H. D. House. One of the most interesting 

 parts of this report is an ecological treatment by Dr. House of the 

 vegetation of the eastern end of Oneida Lake, which is illustrated 

 with very handsome photographs. Coriolopsis rigida is reported 

 on dead limbs and trunks of poplar and the range of the species 

 is said to extend northward to Essex County, New York, southern 

 Ontario, and Wisconsin. 



The Office of Cotton, Truck, and Forage Crop Disease In- 

 vestigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, has recently appointed 

 Mr. W. S. Porte, of Rutgers College, New Jersey, as scientific 

 assistant in plant pathology, to assist in tomato spraying experi- 

 ments ; Mr. S. L. Dodd, Jr., formerly with the West Virginia 

 State Crop Pest Commission and Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, as extension pathologist in the state of West Virginia, with 



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