102 



Mycologia 



sponging the leaves with a dilute solution of potassium per- 

 manganate. 



Mr. J. B. Rorer, mycologist of the Board of Agriculture, 

 Trinidad, recently published an attractive illustrated annual 

 report, treating several important tropical plant diseases and con- 

 taining a preliminary list of Trinidad fungi, to which additions 

 will be made from year to year. 



An extremely handy volume by A. D. Selby on plant diseases, 

 consisting of a general treatment, a special part on Ohio plant 

 diseases, and a classified . bibliography, has just come to us as 

 Bulletin 214 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. 



The commonest cause of the production of cancerous swellings 

 known as "burs" on the trunks of rubber-trees (Hevea) in the 

 Federated Malay States, according to Bancroft, is the wounding 

 of the cortex by cart wheels and in other mechanical ways. 

 Another cause seems to be the irritation from buds failing to 

 develop into shoots. In this connection, the effect of insect work 

 on the trunks of various trees might be investigated. 



Professor J. C. Arthur and Dr. F. D. Kern spent the first 

 week in January at the Garden consulting the mycological 

 herbarium and library, and reading the final proof sheets of their 

 next contribution to the literature of plant rusts, shortly to appear 

 as volume 7, part 3, of North American Flora. 



The meeting of the various scientific societies of the country at 

 Washington during Christmas week was a notable one and well 

 attended. The botanists had very full programs, as well as a 

 dinner and a smoker, in which between one hundred and two 

 hundred took part. The Garden was represented by Dr. N. L. 

 Britton, Dr. W. A. Murrill, Professor R. A. Harper, and Mr. A. 

 B. Stout. A movement to unite all American botanical associa- 

 tions under the Botanical Society of America was auspiciously 



