41 
Journal, by his descriptions of the various diseases to which our 
forest and fruit trees are subject. Of the thirteen chapters, seven are 
devoted to the descriptions of the inodes of growth of specific fungi 
which have, from their abundance and destructive nature, attracted the 
attention of tree growers. 
Those which receive considerable attention, are the following: 
Trametes radiciperda , Htg., the principal cause of “ wet rot ’ 7 or u red 
rot 77 of timber ; Agaricus melleus, Seer.; Polyporus sulphureus , Scop.; 
P. vaporarius , Krombh., and Merulius laerymans , (Jacq.) Fr., causing con¬ 
jointly “dry rot ; 77 Peziza Willimnii , Htg., pathogenetically connected 
with the larch disease or “ canker $ 77 Coleosporium senecionis, (Fr.) Pers. 
( Peridermium pini) the cause of the “pine blister ; 77 and Phytophthora om- 
nivora , DBy., which produced the “ damping off 77 of young seedlings. 
The author has endeavored in the descriptions of these diseases to put 
the whole matter in such language that those unacquainted with the 
terms of cryptogamic botany may understand, and has devoted a large 
portion of each chapter to the dangers from these parasites and the 
most reasonable methods of avoiding such. 
While chapter IY, on the theories advanced to explain the ascent of 
water in tall trees, is perhaps too technical to harmonize well with the 
other chapters, it will be found one of the most interesting because it 
brings together in comparison for the first time in any English work, all 
the prominent theories, old and new, in regard to sap ascension in forest 
trees. 
The well-known theory held by Sachs that the sap ascends through 
the substance of the cell walls by reason of an extraordinary activity 
inherent in imbibed fluid, the author is willing to abandon for Hartig’s 
and Godlewskii’s osmosis pressure theory which takes refuge in the res¬ 
piration of protoplasm to furnish the lifting force. According to the 
views of these investigators the sap ascends by means of the tracheids 
of the alburnum, and is drawn or forced upwards by a periodic change 
which the adjacent cells of the medullary rays undergo, by reason of 
which they alternately absorb water from the tracheids below and ex¬ 
pel it into those above. 
The remarks upon the healing of wounds by occlusion contain many 
warnings against the habit altogether too common among fruit-growers 
and foresters, of allowing freshly broken or cut surfaces of growing 
trees to remain exposed to the dangers so imminent, from the hosts of 
parasitic fungi which only await such opportunity to gain a foothold in 
the tree. As might be expected, repeated references to the work of 
Hartig and other investigators are met with 5 but, throughout, the book 
is well worthy attention.—D. G. F. 
Swingle, W. T. A List of the Kansas Species of Peronosporaceoc. 
Transactions of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Annual Meetings of 
the Kansas Academy of Science (1887- 7 88). Yol. XI, p. 63. 
This State list, the largest one yet published we believe, containing 
32 species of Peronosporecv , a family acknowledged to flourish best in a 
