NEWS, NOTES AND REVIEWS 
Dr. W. H. Rankin, of the department of plant pathology of 
Cornell University, who has in recent years devoted considerable 
time to chestnut canker investigations, spent July 16-18 at the 
Garden consulting the mycological herbarium. 
Another name for the fungus which often attacks the plane- 
tree in spring, causing its young leaves to wither, has been dis- 
covered by A. Tonelli, who concludes that Microstroma Platani 
Eddelb. & Engelke, as well as Gloeosporium nervisequum, is a 
stage of Gnomonia veneta. 
H. von Schrenk, in the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 
for May, 1914, describes a heart-rot of the mesquite in Texas 
caused by Inonotus tcxanus and a trunk disease of the common 
lilac in the vicinity of St. Louis caused by Corolius versicolor. 
Excellent plates accompany the descriptions. 
A. Maublanc and E. Rangel have recently studied the fungous 
parasite of coffee known as Stimblum flazndum and have de- 
cided that it is the sterile form of a fungus to which they give the 
name Omphalia flavida. They find that the parasite easily spreads 
without the recurrence of the perfect form. 
In a recent number of the Journal of Agricultural Research, 
W. H. Long gives very complete descriptions and illustrations of 
the heart-rot caused by Aurantiporus Pilotae, attacking oak and 
chestnut, and Grifola Berkeleyi and Grifola frondosa, attacking 
the base of the trunk and the larger roots of species of oak. 
Dr. H. Hasselbring visited the Garden July 15 on his way to 
Europe. Lie was formerly engaged in mycological studies and is 
at present making extensive investigations into the cause of rot in 
264 
