ters by which it may be recognized. The part devoted to the botanical characters of the fungus shows the species to be very polymorphic. The indebtedness of the author to the studies of Prof. Scribner, of the United States Department of Agriculture (published in this journal for November, 1886, and elsewhere), is acknowledged, especially his indebtedness for the account and illustrations of the perithecia, which have, up to the present time, only been observed in this country. The subject is appropriately closed with full details of all effective means yet known for combating the disease.

NOTES AND NEWS.

MISS SUSAN M. HALLOWELL. professor of botany at Wellesley College, is pursuing studies in the laboratory of Dr. Kny at Berlin.

DR. J. H. OYSTER, of Paola, Kansas, has published his new catalogue of North American plants. It contains 125 pages and an index of genera. The price is $1.25.

"TIMBER, and some of its diseases," is the subject of a series of illustrated papers by H. Marshall Ward in Nature, beginning with issue of December 22, 1887.

MARCUS E. JONES gives a very interesting description of the flora of Utah, in a four-page pamphlet, said to be a reprint from Tullidge's magazine, The Western Galaxy, for March, 1888.

THE VOLUME on British Discomycetes by William Phillips, F. L. S., which was announced more than two years ago, has recently appeared as a number in the International Science series.

EDWARD L. BERTHOUD, a well known botanist and engineer of Colorado, is making a botanical excursion into Lower California, not only along the coast, but into the interior, from which we expect some interesting results.

A SOCIETY for the promotion of the knowledge and cultivation of Cacti and other succulent plants has been established at Antwerp, under the title of "Vetplantenkring." Any one interested in the subject can address the secretary, Mr. T. Havermans, Rue Jésus, 46, Antwerp.

DR. ANTON DE BARY, Professor of Botany in the University of Strassburg, died, after a brief illness, on the 20th day of January, in the fiftyseventh year of his age. The GAZETTE will publish next month a sketch of his life and personal traits from the pen of a former pupil, Dr. F. B. Power, of the University of Wisconsin.

EDWARD S. BURGESS has published a little guide to the student in botany for his use in the Washington (D.C.) High School. It shows a commendable effort to pursue the study of botany in the right way, even in high schools, and probably pushes the subject as far as is consistent with the time and appliances at command.

DR. ALEXANDER DICKSON, Professor of Botany in Edinburgh University, died December 30, being seized with a sudden illness while on the ice, engaged in his favorite pastime of "curling." He was 51 years of age. A biographical sketch in Nature (January 5) says that by his death the world loses one of its best morphologists.

NEW SPECIES of grasses are described by Dr. Geo. Vasey and Prof. F. L. Scribner in the Bull. of Torr. Bot. Club for January. They are a Muhlenbergia and a Sporobolus from Arizona, a Deyeuxia and a Bromus from Montana and the north western mountain region, two species of Poa and four of Alopecurus from Oregon and the northwest.

THE January number of the Journal of Mycology gives the usual variety of contents, but appears in a blank cover. There are 35 species added to the formerly printed list of the Ramulariæ and Cercospora of the United States, and 15 new species of fungi imperfecti are described. The February number will be delayed and issued with the number for March.

THE BOTANICAL SECTION of the biological society of Washington, at their first monthly meeting (January 4), presented the following programme: Recent progress in the study of the fresh-water algae, E. S. Burgess: A case of sewer obstruction by tree roots, F. H. Knowlton; Some fungi of the arid regions, S. M. Tracy; Gloeosporium of the wax bean and Asteroma of the rose, Miss E. A. Southworth.

A WINTER Course of four lectures before the Amateur Botanical Club of Washington was as follows: Prof. Miles Rock on the Guatemala forests, Prof. J. W. Chickering on the flora of Alaska, Prof. Edw. S. Burgess n the fresh-water algae of the District of Columbia, and Dr. George Vasey on some important medical plants. The club is in a prosperous condition, having forty members and a good attendance at its regular meetings.

AN ABSOLUTELY NEW VEGETABLE is a rare thing to chronicle in these days, but such a thing falls to the lot of the Gardener's Chronicle (January 7). It is a tuber developed by a Chinese Labiate, said to be a Stachys. The tubers are borne at the ends of underground branches exactly as in the potato, and are also marked by buds, or "eyes," at the nodes. The plant is said to be hardy, is of the easiest possible culture, and produces the tubers in great profusion.

THE NOMENCLATURE of Nymphaea is further considered by Mr. James Britten in Journal of Botany (January). Enlarging upon Mr. E. L. Greene's discovery (Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, Sept., 1887), he gives still more convincing proofs that our nomenclature of water-lilies must be changed. Nymphæ should be Castalia Salisb., and Nuphar is Nympha a L. The results upon our American forms are as follows: Nymphaea odorata becomes Castalia pudica Salisb.; Nuphar advena becomes Nymphæa advena Soland., and so on.

GARDEN AND FOREST is the name of the new journal for which the name of "Sylva" was first proposed. The first number will be issued this month. The editor-in-chief, Prof. C. S. Sargent, will be assisted by Dr. W. G. Farlow in the department of cryptogamic botany and plant diseases, Dr. A. S. Packard in entomology, and Mr. W. A. Stiles as managing editor. Many eminent writers have signified their willingness to contribute, and there is promise of an auspicious beginning. It is to be a weekly at four dollars a year.

THE INFLUENCE of forests upon rain-fall is a much-discussed question. Mr. Henry Gannett, in Science (January 6), treats this subject in a tabulated way, giving the rain-fall through a long series of years over the regions where one would expect a diminution from "deforesting." His

conclusion is, "it seems idle to discuss further the influence of forests upon rain-fall from the economic point of view, as it is evidently too slight to be of the least practical importance. Man has not yet invented a method of controlling rain-fall.”

FREDERICK BRENDEL has distributed a pamphlet of about ninety pages, entitled "Flora Peoriana." It is a careful and painstaking presentation of the observations of thirty-five years upon the vegetation of a small area in middle Illinois. It is intended to show how local floras should be treated to be useful to phytogeography; how notice should be taken of soil and climate, to understand the vegetation of a certain floral district. It is packed full of useful information, and would serve as a guide to similar observations elsewhere.

FORMATION of starch by plants has been the subject of experiments recently conducted by Professors Ivey and Gray at the School of Agriculture, Canterbury, New Zealand. Peas, beans and wheat were used, and up to date the following results have been obtained, as given in Gardener's Chronicle (January 7): "Starch is least plentiful in leaves collected in early morning, more plentiful in those collected late in the afternoon, but before evening. The degree of sunshine has a direct effect on the rate of starch-formation; in continuous cloudy weather starch is formed by plants but very slowly."

"CONTRIBUTIONS to the life-histories of plants" is the title of a paper distributed by Mr. Thomas Meehan, a reprint from the Proc. Philad Acad. It consists of observations of various kinds upon various plants. Amphicarpe monoica is observed to have apetalous flowers upon the climbing as well as the trailing stems; these flowers produce a third form of pod, and are fertilized from the petal-bearing flowers. Cephalanthus occidentalis is shown to be close-fertilized by the rapid development of the style sweeping the pollen out of the anthers, after the manner of the Composite. In Amorpha canescens it is observed that the vexillum is remarkably tardy in development, in fact attaining its size and attractiveness after fertilization has been effected. In Oxybaphus hirsutus, also, nothing suggests any arrangements for cross-fertilization.

PROFESSOR PIERRE VIALA sailed for Europe on December 3, after a stay of some months in this country. One of the objects of his mission was to see if there was any species of Vitis growing wild in the United States on soils corresponding to the calcareous (chalk) soils of central France. He traveled through the southern United States, making special study of grape culture in California and Missouri. In Texas he gathered some interesting facts about the native species of Vitis, one species of which is likely to prove useful in France. Some forms of viticolous fungi were recognized not before recorded for the United States. He returned feeling that he had been most happily successful in the accomplishment of the purposes of his visit. His report will probably appear in France and in this country at about the same date, and will be a work of special interest to American viticulturists.

ERRATA.-On page 5, foot-note. for "1877" read 1887. On page 9, third and fifth lines from bottom: for "Gothic shaped" read L-shaped.

VOL. XIII, No. 3.-BOTANICAL GAZETTE.-MARCH, 1888.

Asa Gray.

Three months ago the sad news that Professor Gray was stricken with paralysis and that there was slight hope of his recovery brought deep sorrow to all the friends of botany in this country. All hoped and prayed for the best, but his time had come, and we have all lost a revered teacher and a true friend. This is no time for a cold review of his scientific work nor need we record the incidents of his life, but, while our recent bereavement rests heavily upon us, we may well recall those personal traits which endeared him to us all. In recounting his own personal experience the writer feels assured that, in all that concerns those qualities which made a deep impression at the time and still linger as a precious memory, his experience was the experience of all who knew Prof. Gray, and he trusts that the tribute which he can but imperfectly express will find a response in the hearts of all American botanists.

Although nearly twenty-five years have passed, it seems but a short time since the writer first met Prof. Gray in the class-room. Having previously studied the Structural Botany, and being familiar to some extent with the Manual, he was curious to see their author, and pictured to himself an elderly man, learned, of course, but probably unapproachable. How different the reality! He saw a young-looking man, with strikingly bright and expressive eyes, quick in all his motions, and so thoroughly in earnest and absorbed in his subject that he assumed that all his hearers must be equally interested. There was an air of simplicity and straightforwardness without a trace of the conscious superiority or the pedantic manner which so often accompanies learning, so that he seemed to be one of us, a student among students. In those days all students were required to study botany for one term, and, although there were, of course, some to whom the subject itself was distasteful, the instructor was beloved by all. The lectures were then given in an old room in Harvard Hall, which had once served as the college library and afterward as a sort of museum. All the material for the botanical lectures had to be brought from the garden, and twice a week, as the spring advanced, we used to see him

hurrying down Garden street, a most picturesque object, so covered by the mass of branches and flowers which were to illustrate the lecture that his head and body were hardly visible. No provision was then made for those who wished to continue the study of botany beyond one term, but, although it must have been a serious drain on the time intended for his own scientific work, no student who expressed a desire to learn more than the college authorities required failed to receive from him all the special instruction he needed. The few who gathered round the little table in Harvard Hall in pursuit of knowledge which did not count in the college reckoning will never forget the untiring patience with which he explained what then seemed difficult, the contagious enthusiasm with which he led them on from simple facts toward the higher fields of science, or the tender personal interest which he showed in their hopes and half formed plans for the future— an interest which, on his part, only strengthened as years passed on, and makes them now mourn, not so much the death of a great botanist, as the loss of a sympathizing friend.

The same simplicity and sincerity, the same enthusiasm and sympathy with the work of others, characterized him to the end. Only the day before he was prostrated with paralysis he conversed with the same clearness and vivacity, and exhibited the same lively interest in what was being done by botanists at home and abroad, as in his younger days. Although far along in years, he always remained young in spirit. Time may have bent his form a little, but it could not cloud the cheerful, happy heart nor dim the alert mind which made his presence a joy in any company, grave or gay, old or young. This cheerfulness was not that which arises from mere animal spirits. It came from a deep conviction that everything, whatever it may seem to be, is really good. This faith and abiding hope which sprang from within made itself constantly felt in his intercourse with others, and inspired them, for, while those around him were despondent, he always felt that in the end everything would turn out well. Even the death of the scientific friends with whom he had been associated for many years did not depress him as it did others. He treasured their memories without repining, and no one could so well as he rehearse the story of their lives and work, or express the words of deep sympathy which many felt but could not utter.

In nothing was his kindly disposition better seen than in his criticism of the work of other botanists. His own standard