THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
21 
called cuckoo-bees, take advantage of this fact and lay their 
eggs beside the food stores of their more provident neigh- 
bors, in this way acting to all intents and purposes as the 
cuckoo does among birds. 
Shelf Fungus on a Leaf. — The shelf fungi growing 
on old logs and even on standing trees are familiar objects, 
but we scarcely look for such hard woody growths upon 
leaves. Thus far there has been but one species reported 
with this habit and this has recently been described as a new 
species. The plant has been known for some time, however. 
The editor of this journal saw specimens among a collection 
of South American plants half a dozen years ago. 
Possibilities of Species-Making. — In Gray's Manu- 
al the section Biota of the genus Aster contains but two spe- 
cies which botanists have agreed to call Aster corymb osiis, 
and Aster Macrophylliis. Both species are fairly common, 
widely distributed and can live in a variety of habitats. This 
diversity of habitat, of course, has produced a great number 
of forms differing in slight degree from the typical species 
and has long offered a tempting field for the work of the 
species-maker. It is no surprise, then, to hear that Dr. E. 
S. Burgess has written a book of more than four hundred 
octavo pages in which he separates our two well known, but 
unfortunate plants into no less than eighty-one new species. 
It is safe to say that none but the author could identify these 
eighty-one species if the labels should accidently get mixed, 
but the author, undaunted by this array of species, has 
named ten more varieties and nearly tw^o hundred and fifty 
lesser forms! Two species expanded into nearly three 
hundred and fifty forms. This ought to amuse even the 
hawthorn specialists. If anybody ever starts in on the 
human race with similar ideas of what species are, some 
families will doubtless be found to consist of at least half a 
dozen new species and possibly one or two new genera. 
