292 



Mycologia 



two months of the dry season, especially if the trees are not in a 

 good situation or condition. The disease has been called die-back 

 and sun-scald, but the author suggests the name of algal disease 

 in order to distinguish it from true die-back and sun-scald, which 

 are said to be caused by a Diplodia. Spraying with Bordeaux 

 mixture has been attended by beneficial results, and attention to 

 tillage, drainage, shade, and protection from wind are also con- 

 sidered essential to the complete control of the disease. 



In the Journal of Agricultural Research for 1918, W. H. Long 

 and H. M. Harsch describe a method for differentiating various 

 wood-rotting fungi by their cultural characters alone when grown 

 upon artificial media. It is claimed that when cultural characters 

 of closely related but really distinct species are compared, marked 

 and constant differences in the character of the mycelium will 

 be found on certain corresponding agars in the series of cultures 

 representing the two species, while if the fungi are really of the 

 same species, no constant differences will occur. Basing the con- 

 clusion on these facts, the authors state that unknown rots can be 

 identified by making pure cultures of the causative organisms 

 from diseased wood. 



Professor Bruce Fink, of Miami University, has contributed 

 the following note : 



" On the fifth of September, 1918, I was called to examine 

 what a farmer had brought to Oxford, Ohio, and was exhibiting 

 as an unusual mushroom. I found the exhibit to be a cluster of 

 Clitocybe illudens, 90 inches in circumference, 15 inches high, 

 and 44 inches from one side over the top to the opposite side. The 

 cluster was compressed-hemispheric in form. There were ap- 

 proximately 300 plants that stood out so that they could be seen 

 readily, and some bystander thought there were as many as 400 

 in all, counting those that were compressed between the ones that 

 were plainly visible. Seeing this unusual cluster of fungi recalls 

 that in 1896, I found at Fayette, Iowa, a specimen of Lycoperdon 

 giganteum which was 85 inches in circumference. The plant was 

 of the usual form for this species, and was, as I recall, between 



