News and Notes 
111 
superior methods will be discovered and put into practice in the 
near future. The most valuable paragraph in the bulletin reads 
as follows: “Finally, tree owners are urged to remember at all 
times the axiom: The need of tree surgery 15 or 20 years hence 
may be very largely obviated by promptly attending to the fresh 
injuries of to-day.” 
Some observations on abortive sporophores of wood-destroying 
fungi were reported by James R. Weir in Phytopathology for Feb- 
ruary, 1915. He comes to the conclusion that the peculiar abnor- 
mal growths on birch trunks are without doubt sterile sporophores 
of Pyropolyporus igniarius. He has found similar abortive spor- 
ophores of this species on alder trunks in Montana, and sterile 
ram’s-horn-like sporophores of Porodaedalea Pini on the western 
white pine. An interesting statement made by Mr. Weir in this 
article is to the effect that the mycelium of one species attacking a 
tree trunk is always antagonistic to that of another species on the 
same trunk, and, since the mycelium of typical Pyropolyporus 
igniarius is not antagonistic to that of its principal variety, P. ig- 
niarius nigricans, the latter cannot be looked upon as a distinct 
species. 
Charles Horton Peck Retires 
The following minute has been adopted by the regents of the 
University of the State of New York on the retirement of Dr. 
Charles H. Peck from the position of state botanist: 
The service rendered to the state by Charles Horton Peck, D.Sc., who 
has just retired from his position as state botanist, has been extraordinary in 
its fidelity, assiduity and productiveness. Dr. Peck entered the staff of the 
State Museum as botanist in 1867, and from that date to the present, his 
service has been continuous — a period of 48 years. In 1883 the position of 
state botanist was created and he has been its only incumbent. 
The nearly half century of his scientific activity became an epoch in the 
science of botany in America, by virtue of the extensive contributions which 
he made, not alone to the knowledge of the flora of New York but specially 
through his almost pioneer investigations among the fungi. His researches 
in this field vastly increased the sum of knowledge and established an orderly 
and rational classification so that his published papers, issued in the reports 
of the state museum, are indispensable to any student of these forms of life. 
