News and Notes 
281 
timber. Scars caused by comparatively insignificant fires furnish 
gateways through which insects and rot-producing fungi enter 
the tree. In spite of this fact, it is often claimed that small fires 
do not injure the forests and the claim is sometimes made that 
they are even beneficial. Studies made by the author of the article 
in Arkansas show that the continuous burning of the forests is 
causing annual losses of thousands of dollars. Most of this loss 
is caused by the indirect effect of the fire in paving the way for 
heart rot fungi and harmful insects. Most of these evil effects 
might be eliminated by cooperation of the people in preventing 
all fires, both large and small. 
A short paper on “ The production of a promycelium by the 
aecidiospores of Caeoma nitens” by Otto Kunkel in the July 
number of the Torrey Bulletin is of especial interest to students 
of the rusts. Caeoma nitens, the common orange leaf rust of the 
blackberry, has been considered the aecidial stage of Puccinia 
Peckiana Howe, both Tranzschel and Clinton having claimed to 
establish the connection through infection experiments. Kunkel, 
however, finds that these aecidiospores are functionally teleuto- 
spores. On germination they regularly give rise to a septate pro- 
mycelium and sporidia. The normal promycelium consists of five 
cells four of which are uninucleated while the basal cell lacks a 
nucleus. Each nucleated cell produces a sporidium on a sterigma. 
The sporidia germinate immediately producing either secondary 
sporidia or germ tubes. Cytological studies of Caeoma nitens by 
Olive and Kurssanow have shown that a uninucleated mycelium 
precedes the formation of the aecidium and that the binucleated 
condition is brought about by cell fusions. The aecidiospores are 
binucleated. Kunkel’s further observation on the germination 
of these aecidiospores suggests that nuclear fusion occurs in the 
aecidiospore and is followed by the reduction divisions in the pro- 
mycelium. If this should prove to be the case the mycelium pro- 
duced by infection with sporidia would be uninucleated and the 
life cycle of the fungus would be complete. Caeoma nitens would 
thus be a complete rust with a single spore form. This condition 
would be quite comparable to that found in several species of 
Endophylhim the only essential difference being that in species of 
