Journal of the New York Botanical Garden

              JOURNAL
OF
THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
IN T H I S ISSUE:
T R U F F L E S
BERGEN SWAMP:
RARE PLANT REFUGE
AFOOT AND AFLOAT
FOR BLISTER RUST
PRIMULA CULTURE
OUTDOORS
NEWS OF THE
GARDEN
BOOK REVIEWS
PAGES 101— 128
VOL. 51 No. 605
NTS $ 1.50 A YEAR
MORELS IN MAY
Wednesday
Thursday,
Friday,
Saturday,
, May 10
May 11
May 12
May 13
SPRING FESTIVAL
at
The New York Botanical Garden
May 10 - 14, 1950
Pan- American Day, with exhibits of exotic flowers flown in from
Pan- American countries.
Garden Club Day, with special tours arranged around the grounds
and buildings.
Netherlands Day, with a program for school children in the morn­ing
and a tulip specimen show and program in the afternoon.
Bronx Neighborhood Day, with square dancing on the lawn fol­lowing
the showing of " While the Earth Remaineth" in the
afternoon.
Sunday, May 14 Your Garden Day, with John Kieran and James J. Lyons among
the speakers at an afternoon program with band music.
FREE SATURDAY PROGRAMS
3 p. m. in the Lecture Hall
May 6 Fenlands, The Grassy Shires, and Gardens of England
Three motion pictures
May 13 While the Earth Remaineth— A motion picture with
symphonic background Frank E. Gunneil
May 20 Plants for the Terrace Joy Logee
Danielson, Conn.
MORELS IN MAY
( The cover picture)
Believed by many to be the tastiest of all mushrooms growing wild, the morel
( Morchella esculenta) is the first edible fungus sought in spring by mycophagists. In
conifer woods in the vicinity of New York, it can often be found in abundance during
May.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAY 1950
TRUFFLES Donald P. Rogers 101
BERGEN SWAMP, WESTERN NEW YORK'S HAVEN FOR RARE PLANTS
W. C. Muenscher 103
AFOOT AND AFLOAT FOR BLISTER- RUST Walter H. Snell 111
GROWING HARDY PRIMULAS Edward O. Birch 115
DAVID D. KECK APPOINTED HEAD CURATOR 118
NOTES, NEWS, AND COMMENT 119
NOTICES AND REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 121
The Journal is published monthly by The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx Park, New York 58,
N. Y. Printed in U. S. A. Entered as Second Class Matter, January 28, 1936, at the Post Office
at New York, N. Y., under the Act of August 24, 1912. Annual subscription $ 1.50. Single copies
15 cents.
JOURNAL
of
THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
CAROL H. WOODWARD, Editor
VOL. 51 MAY 1950 No. 605
Truffles
Subterranean Treasures for the Epicure and Botanist
By Donald P Rogers
FOR some two thousand years in the civilization of western Europe,
whenever cooking has reached the dignity of an art, the truffle has been
without a peer among resources for the epicure. It is no new thing that
truffles have been granted popular acceptance as the special symbol of the
gourmet, for so it was in Rome in classical times, and so again has it been
ever since the French and Italian renaissance. Only during those ages
when neither learning nor manners nor gastronomy has been held in wide
esteem have truffles been ignored by men and left to those humbler animals
who always know good food when they smell it.
An object less luscious in appearance would be hard to imagine. Truffles
grow completely buried in the soil. They are usually irregular in shape and
lumpy or warted on the surface; and whether pinkish or ochre- colored, as
are many of the less highly flavored species, or brown to black, as are the
kinds more greatly esteemed, they wholly resemble small stones. The
resemblance is, in fact, so complete that one digging truffles in stony soil
has to discard many likely looking pebbles for every truffle that he finds.
Although men with sufficient persistence and luck in finding a favorable
area may collect truffles unaided, the most successful means of uncovering
them is provided by animals, pigs or more commonly dogs, whose keener
sense of smell enables them to locate the buried treasure without the aim­less
digging and the endless unfruitful excavations of a man with a trowel.
The animals are specially trained for the purpose, and people who gather
truffles for the market rely on them wholly.
From the days of Theophrastus, the great Greek botanist, and Pliny,
the Roman naturalist, down to modern times the nature of truffles has been
a subject of conjecture and fantastic invention. Theophrastus recognized
them as vegetables; but his successors for many centuries rejected his judg­ment.
For most of two thousand years truffles were held to be special
101
1U1
102
formations of— not merely in— the soil, perhaps more like concretions than
anything else; they were believed to be brought into existence in one way
or another by the action of warmth, rain, and thunder. Occasional natu­ralists
considered them to be tumorous outgrowths of the roots of trees.
The first real knowledge of the nature of truffles resulted early in the
eighteenth century from the studies of the greatest of Italian botanists,
Micheli, who recognized that they were fungi and gave them their proper
place in scientific classification. From his work and that of his successors
it is known that truffles are mushrooms— that is, the fruits of fungi—
closely related to the well known and greatly esteemed sponge mushroom
or morel; that they live in association with the roots of various trees, from
which they derive their food and to which they apparently yield up mate­rials
used by the tree in its growth; and that the spores, which in all fungi
serve the same function as seeds, are scattered by insects or small animals
that are attracted by the odor of the truffles and use them as food.
Truffles are commonly thought of as a product of Mediterranean lands,
chiefly France and Italy; and it is true that they are nowhere else sys­tematically
gathered for the table. They occur, however, throughout the
north temperate zone; and more than sixty kinds grow in North America.
Most of these are known chiefly or only from the west coast states—
Oregon, Washington, and northern California— in part because truffles
seem to be more abundant there, and in part because the native ground-squirrels
provide by their food- hunting excavations a hint of places where
truffles may be growing. Of the few truffles found in the eastern states,
most have been unearthed by botanists who were digging for something
else. So great has been their rarity in the east that those truffles that have
been collected have been preserved as objects of scientific study and have
found their way into botanical museums. All of their qualities are better
known than their taste, since it would be sacrilegious for a botanist to eat
his specimens. There are, nevertheless, some American species, dark
and aromatic, which deserve all of the praises that have been spent on their
Mediterranean kin. And at least one of these, Tuber dryophilum, has been
found most abundantly in the east.
It would be expected, judging from European experience, that such a
species could be collected successfully by the use of trained dogs; and so
it has proved. For two brief periods a New Yorker, Mr. Lorenzo Robba,
has had the benefit of the superior nose and European education of an
imported truffle- dog, and both times their collaboration has produced fair
numbers of excellent truffles. Other hunters, lacking a dog's assistance,
have succeeded in getting mostly pebbles. Both gastronomes and botanists
would be aided in their respective pursuits by the activities of this special­ized
sort of field- dog.
* # * *
Next month Dr. Rogers will tell about the training of truffle hounds.
103
' Bergen Swamp, Western New York's
Haven for Rare ( Plants
By W. C. Muenscher
All photographs by the author
BERGEN Swamp J is a relatively primitive area in the midst of a highly
developed agricultural region. Located in Genesee County, a little more
than 20 miles from Rochester, it is within a few hours ride by motor or
rail from the principal centers of population, industry, and higher educa­tion
in western New York State. The strategic, as well as vulnerable,
position of this unique remnant of natural history associations has been
recognized for some time, and in 1936 a small group of interested in­dividuals
in and about Rochester formed an organization * to attempt to
save the swamp from destruction.
Naturalists have roamed over Bergen Swamp for at least a century.
Some of the rarest plants in New York State have been known from there
since its early exploration; others have been discovered there in more
recent years. For some plants Bergen Swamp is the only known habitat
in New York State.
The part of Bergen Swamp that is best known to naturalists consists
of an open marl bog area surrounded by a belt of forest and swampy
thickets. While the marl bog is an extensive and interesting feature of
the swamp it represents not a static but a dynamic area, the uniqueness
and persistence of which are highly dependent upon the surrounding
physiographic features and the types of plants that these support.
A distinctive element in the vegetation encircling the open marl bog
is the dense white- cedar or arbor- vitae thicket. The durable wood of the
trunks of these trees is so highly prized for posts that, unless their ex-
1 The G in Bergen is pronounced with a J sound.
2 Incorporated under and chartered by the Board of Regents of New York State,
the aim of the Bergen Swamp Preservation Society, Inc. is " to preserve inviolate
for all time in their natural state the lands known as Bergen Swamp; to conserve
the flora and fauna of the lands owned by or under the control of the Society;
to offer to schools and colleges and other properly accredited students or groups
of persons access to the swamps and forests of the Society for the purpose of
observation and study; to publish from time to time scientific and cultural in­formation
covering the biology and wild life of the areas controlled by the Society."
At this time, February 1950, the Society has an active membership of about 110,
has obtained title to about 360 acres of swamp land and has aims of acquiring
about 1,200 to 1,500 additional acres.
Anyone interested in the conservation of Bergen Swamp may write to Dr.
Babette I. Brown, Corresponding Secretary of the Society, Prince Street Campus,
University of Rochester, Rochester 7, New York, requesting the leaflet entitled
" Bergen Swamp — Some Questions and Answers."
104
The Varied Moods of Bergen Swamp
WITH crows cawing ominously in the distance and turkey buzzards
circling overhead, the densely wooded acres of Bergen Swamp that are
visible from the south present an eerie aspect. But once the swamp itself is
gained and you stumble through a wall of burgeoning gray dogwood into a
slough encircled by new green and russet fronds of cinnamon fern, the evil
spell is broken. One enchanting sight after another lures you to proceed,
through myriad white trilliums and carpets of wild ginger, to dim, moss-covered
deer trails bordered with violets, columbine and foam- flower.
Look closer at the oozing path to see the mosaic of a dozen different leaves
of springtime green. Look up to catch the brilliant flash of a scarlet tanager.
Look ahead, and pinkster flower holds the eye, then, caught in patches of
sunlight filtering down through the hemlocks, a magenta mass of fringed
polygala.
Walk off the path to the left in the direction of an oven- bird's call, and
a cluster of large downy yellow lady- slippers, just beginning to open, will
unexpectedly burst into view. Try to retrace your steps, get lost, and find
your reward in a glimpse of pink lady- slippers in an open spot.
To climax all, swing back among the cedars and suddenly before you, in
another clearing, dozens of the tiniest of lady- slippers stand against the blue-berried
boughs of creeping juniper. Their small white waxy pouches glisten­ing
in the sun provide a rarer, yes, and fairer, sight than Wordsworth's
daffodils.
Less than five square miles in extent, Bergen Swamp seems but a drop in
the bucket compared to the 49,000 square miles of New York State, yet this
region offers more of beauty, interest, and diversity than many a natural area
of greater size. It is of such infinite variety that no matter what the man or
his mood, he can find something among its treasures to which he responds.
Let him come weary with mental exertion to Bergen Swamp in spring,
when the paths are running rivulets, traverse its breadth in apparent search
of something never seen before, and he'll be granted sound sleep that night
from the sheer physical exertion put forth to meet his goal.
Later, in the hot summer, cool shade and colorful fungi await one's advent
to the deep woods of the swamp. For complete solitude, you may wander
into a " marl room" carpeted with creeping juniper and walled by dense
white cedars. If you would explore, but with a minimum of physical effort,
the fund of cryptogamic plants on almost any fallen tree will hold you wrapt
for hours.
Be the world cold and lonely in November, you will find warmth and
friendliness among the hemlocks of the swamp with their companionable
chickadees.
Professor Walter C. Muenscher of Cornell, who probably knows more
about this cherished swamp than any other person, and who for more than
thirty years has found it a fascinating place to visit during every month and
in all kinds of weather, in the following pages reports some of its highlights.
BABETTE I. BROWN.
105
CEDAR POSTS FROM BERGEN SWAMP
The exploitation of arbor- vitae ( locally called cedar) is the greatest single danger
to the preservation of this important natural area of western New York State.
ploitation can be halted, the most characteristic regions of the swamp are
in serious danger of destruction.
In order to give you a little idea of what can be seen in Bergen Swamp
I will take you on an imaginary trip entering from the south side and
following a very zig- zag route, really not a path at all, and leaving it by
the north side.
Bergen Swamp is readily accessible from the slightly higher ground on
the south, where a car can be driven to within 100 yards of its margin.
Through an old abandoned woods trail the rim of hardwood forest of
birch, maple and elm is easily crossed to the edge of the arbor- vitae belt
which varies from scattered trees, shading a cool moss- carpeted floor, to
a dense, almost impenetrable thicket of small trees of various sizes de­pending
upon how much time has elapsed since the area has been disturbed
by wood cutters. After the arbor- vitae belt has been crossed by walking,
crawling, or wading, we approach the most interesting part of the swamp,
the open marl bog areas.
Frequently covered with several inches of water, these open marl areas
are dominated by several kinds of sedges, bulrushes, and twig- rush, among
which the fragrant arrow- grasses, the false asphodel, the club- rush and
spike- rush3 and also Zygadenus chloranthus, are common.
3 Botanical names of all plants mentioned are listed at the end of the article.
106
In the shrubby border of the marl and on the higher, better drained,
secondary marl, mats of creeping juniper form a background in May for
the small white lady's slipper, which is represented here better than any­where
else in New York State. On still higher areas, in late summer, the
tall, flat- topped Ohio goldenrod is abundant and Houghton's goldenrod,
smallest of them all, is found in the best stand known in New York State.
Dwarfed tamaracks, 100 years old but only a few feet high, present a
pleasing landscape with clumps of low- growing autumn willow and shrubby
cinquefoil.
On the moist moss- covered turf in the shade of arbor- vitae, large
masses of blue and white violets abound, the dwarf dewberry and star-flower
are everywhere, and the miterwort thrives along moist stream
borders. In open glades, where the sun penetrates among the arbor- vitae
trees, several shrubs including swamp honeysuckle, bayberry, and swamp
buckthorn, form a border around little copses, protecting clusters of
yellow lady's slippers. A little later the showy lady's slipper rears its regal
blossoms in boggy glades protected by shade part of each day. A wild
valerian closely resembling garden heliotrope forms a showy border with
grass- of- Parnassus along the edges of pools in partial shade.
Scattered among the open marl areas occur many hummocks, often only
a few yards in diameter, areas raised about a foot or two above the sur­rounding
marl, and covered with a dense mat of sphagnum mosses. These
moss beds form the bases for beautiful arrangements and designs of color,
form and texture. Several shrubby creepers contributing to these little
natural plantings include the small cranberry, twin- flower, the creeping
snowberry, bunchberry, and wintergreen. There are also the higher bushes,
Labrador tea, huckleberry, and several blueberries.
Among the evergreen creepers, sometimes not without considerable
competition, the shy little sundew thrives in abundance and the pitcher
plant adds color by its reddish and persistent spreading leaves. Scattered
individuals of orchids contribute their color in season. The showy white
clusters of cotton grass and the flowers of the false asphodel, followed
by their reddish capsules, and the dwarf species of false Solomon's seal
always add interest.
After this introduction to the middle of the swamp, we shall leave it
by the north side, but first we cross some forested knolls on which white
pine and hemlock are the dominant trees interspersed with hardwoods.
Here the hobble- bush and azalea appear to be making a last stand among
other shrubs such as mountain maple and fly honeysuckle. Of the her­baceous
species, the painted trillium occurs among a profuse growth of
Indian cucumber- root, clintonia, goldthread, and others. In one rather
moist area of about one acre thrive scattered clumps of the one- flowered
107
A SMALL AREA IN THE OPEN MARL BOG
In this December view the surrounding forest is seen to consist of white pine,
tamarack, and arbor- vitae.
pyrola. Nearby the forest floor is carpeted with the pink of fringed
polygala, with occasional white- flowered forms.
As we approach Black Creek near the north edge of the swamp, the
alluvial soil, subject to inundations, supports a quite different type of
vegetation. The silt deposited near the bank of the meandering stream
has built a natural levee. The trees here consist mainly of silver maple
and red ash with scattered individuals of shagbark hickory, bur oak, and
sycamore. Near the water's edge abounds the sandbar willow. Thickets
of wahoo and prickly- ash are found among the scattered trees farther
back. Under the shade of the trees the aroid called green dragon, and
extensive stands of ostrich fern, are among the largest herbs in an almost
continuous cover of vegetation.
As the alluvial bank gradually slopes away from the stream towards
the swamp, large areas of sloughs support a sedge swamp of Carex riparia
interspersed with beds of giant bur- reeds and sweet- flag. Among the
margins of the sloughs the buttonbush makes dense masses to the ap­parent
exclusion of everything else.
In several depressions, areas appearing like open ponds in the spring
and early summer, can be found five members of the duckweed family
108
and many kinds of algae. Later in the summer these same areas, after
the water has receded, are filled with many emersed aquatics and marsh
plants.
Black Creek itself appears uninteresting in early spring but by early
summer the lake cress and several pondweeds begin to appear at the
water surface. What earlier appeared to be barren mud flats become
covered with dense strips of the lizard's tail, with their continuity inter­rupted
here and there by colonies of cardinal flower, arrowhead or duck-potato,
and narrow irregular bands covered with water cress marking
the course of small lateral rivulets draining the shallow ponds into Black
Creek.
For a single trip we have had enough tramping even if we have seen
only a small part of Bergen Swamp. If we can find a fallen tree to use
as a bridge to cross over Black Creek we shall soon be out of the swamp.
From this imaginary field excursion I do not wish to leave the impres­sion
that we have seen nearly all there is to be seen in Bergen Swamp.
We have mentioned only a few of the more striking and unusual flowering
herbs, shrubs and trees. Although I have taken many trips during the
last 33 years, sometimes in every month during a year, I still find some
new plants each time I go there. To introduce you to the algae, fungi,
liverworts and mosses would require additional excursions, in different
seasons or to different habitats.
In our hurried trip time did not permit a search for the coal skink,
Muhlenberg's turtle, the massasauga rattler, and other interesting denizens
of the swamp. An inventory of the animals in many of the groups, even
in an approximate form, is still waiting further field activities by the
zoologists, ornithologists and entomologists.
The plant world of Bergen Swamp consists of species representing the
following groups :
Spermatophytes, 820. including 10 conifers and 810 flowering plants;
Pteridophytes, 37, including ferns, club mosses, and horsetails;
Bryophytcs, 165, including 41 liverworts and 124 mosses;
Thallophytes, 1302, including 345 algae, 240 diatoms, 600 fungi, 67 slime
molds and 50 lichens.
This makes a total of 2,324 known species from an area of less than
five square miles and represents approximately 7/ 10 of one per cent of
all species of plants known from the whole world. 4
No matter what you find, see, or remember when you revisit Bergen
Swamp in fact or fancy may it always recall to you :
4 Anyone interested in the kinds of plants that have been found in Bergen Swamp
is referred to The Yajclation of Bergen Szvamp— Parts I to VII, in Volume 9,
Proceedings, Rochester Academy of Science, 1946- 1950. The groups of plants
covered in sequence are the vascular plants, epiphytes, myxomycetes, algae, diatoms,
fungi, liverworts and mosses.
109
A place where one may still see Nature at work and learn some of
her lessons and secrets.
A small wilderness of quiet recesses, copses and canopies where one
may sojourn in undisturbed solitude for inspiration and stimulus for
the future.
A heritage from the past with the possibility of linking the present
with the future until both shall have become a part of the dim past.
FLOWERING PLANTS OF BERGEN SWAMP
A partial list
ARBOR VITAE ( locally called cedar or white
cedar)
ARROW- GRASS
ARROWHEAD ( d u c k - p o t a t o)
ASH, RED
AZALEA ( pinkster flower)
BAYBERRY
BIRCH
BLUEBERRY
BUCKTHORN, SWAMP
BULRUSH
BUNCHBERRY
BUTTONBUSH
CARDINAL FLOWER
CINQUEFOIL, SHRUBBY
CLINTONIA
CLUB- RUSH
COTTON GRASS
CRANRERRY
CREEPING SNOWBERRY
Thuja accidentalis
Triglochin maritima and T. pahtstris
Sagittaria latifolia
Fraxinus pennsylvanica
Rhododendron nudiflorum
Myrica pennsylvanica
Be tula lutea
Vaccinium corymbosum
Rhamnus alnifolia
J uncus
Cornus canadensis
Cephalanthus occidentalis
Lobelia cardinalis
Potentilla fruticosa
Clintonia borealis
Scirpus caespitosus
Eriophorum viride- carinahim
Vactinium oxycoccus
Chiogenes hispidula
LADY- SLIPPER RESIDENTS OF BERGEN SWAMP
It is seldom that these four species of Cypripedium are all found growing in the
same small area. Left to right are shown the small white lady- slipper ( C candidum),
the large yellow ( C. pubescens), the stemless ( C. acaule), and the showy lady- slipper
( C. regime).
110
LIZARD'S TAIL ALONG BLACK CREEK
Only beside occasional streams and in marshes is this little- known plant found in
the eastern half of the United States. It is common in the northern border of Bergen
Swamp.
DUCKWEED
DEWBERRY, DWARF
ELM
FALSE ASPHODEL
FALSE SOLOMON'S SEAL
GIANT BUR- REED
GOLDENROD, HOUGHTON'S
GOLDENROD, OHIO
GOLDTHREAD
GRASS- OF- PARNASSUS
GREEN DRAGON
HEMLOCK
HICKORY, SHAGBARK
HOBBLE- BUSH
HONEYSUCKLE, FLY OR SWAMP
HUCKLEBERRY
INDIAN CUCUMBER- ROOT
JUNIPER, CREEPING
LABRADOR TEA
LADY'S SLIPPER, SHOWY
LADY'S SLIPPER, STEMLESS
Lcmna and Spirodela species
Rubits pubescens
Ulmus americana
Tofieidia glutinosa
Smilacina trifolia
Sparganium eurycarpum
Solidago Houghtonii
Solidago ohioense
Coptis trifolia
Parnassia caroliniana
Arisaema dracontium
Tsuga canadensis
Carya ovata
Viburnum alnifofium
Lonicera oblongifolia
Gaylussacia baccata
Medeoia virginica
Juniperus horizontalis
Ledum groenlandicum
Cypripedium reginae
Cypripedium acaule
I ll
LADY S SLIPPER, WHITE
LADY'S SLIPPER, YELLOW
LAKE CRESS
LIZARD'S TAIL
MAPLE
MAPLE, MOUNTAIN
MAPLE, SILVER
MITERWORT
OAK, BUR
ORCHIDS ( See also LADY'S SLIPPER)
POLYGALA, FRINGED
PINE, WHITE
PITCHER PLANT
PONDWEED
PRICKLY- ASH
PYROLA
SEDGE
SEDGE
SPIKE- RUSH
STARFLOWER
SUNDEW
SWEET- FLAG
SYCAMORE
TAMARACK
TRILLIUM, PAINTED
TWIG- RUSH
TWIN- FLOWER
VALERIAN, WILD
VIOLETS
WAHOO
WATER CRESS
WILLOW, AUTUMN
WILLOW, SANDBAR
WINTERGREEN
ZYGADENUS
Cypripedium candiditm
Cypripedium pubescens
Armoracia aquatica
Saururus cernua
Acer saccharum
Acer s pica turn
Acer saccharinum
Mitella nuda
Quercus macrocarpa
Arethusa bulbosa
Pogonia ophioglossoides
Calopogon pulchellus
Polygala paucifolia
Pinus Strobus
Sarracenia purpurea
Potamogeton amplifolius and
P Berchtoldii
Zanthoxylum americanum
Moneses uniflora
Carex species
Carex riparia var. lacustris
Eleocharis rostellata
Trientalis borealis
Drosera roiundifolia
Acorus Calamus
Platanus occidentalis
Larix laricina
Trillium undulatum
Cladium mariscoides
Linnaea borealis
Valeriana uliginosa
Viola species
Evonymus atropurpureus
Nasturtium officinale
Salix serissima
Salix interior
Gaultheria procumbens
Zygadenus chloranthus
* JM= C »
zAfoot and oAfloat for ' Blister- Rust
By Walter H. Snell
THE seriousness and danger of the blister- rust of white pine began to
be appreciated just about the time that I was starting out my scientific
career in the mid ' twenties and I happened to be available for assistance in
the early investigations. I continued my contact with and study of this
important disease for parts of the following twenty- five years, either with
the Office of Forest Pathology of the United States Department of Agri­culture,
from Maine to Minnesota, or with the Conservation Department
of the State of New York.
112
BOTANICAL problems are sometimes attacked amid the test- tubes and
petri- dishes of a laboratory, sometimes among piles of herbarium sheets
or boxes containing dried specimens of fungi. Some are approached in a
library, but some require vast open spaces for their solution. How one
botanist began a quarter- century of work on white pine blister- rust is told
here. The author, a plant pathologist and mycologist, is Professor of Botany
at Brown University, Providence, R. I. In a subsequent article he will describe
some further significant aspects of his work, which has had the dual purpose
of advancing botanical research and helping to save the native white pine
from destruction by a vicious fungus— C. H. W.
One of the interesting investigations with which I was connected was
the distance of spread of this disease— the distances to which spores of the
fungus could be carried, the distances at which the various spores were
dangerous as a source of infection. The following points will be recalled
concerning the blister- rust fungus. It is an obligate parasite. That is, it
can grow only when obtaining its sustenance from some other living matter.
It is heteroecious in that it has two dwelling- places in its life cycle. That
is, it alternates between white or five- needled pines and wild and cultivated
currants and gooseberries ( all currants and gooseberries hereinafter re­ferred
to by their common generic name of Ribes, pronounced with two
syllables and with both vowels long). Also, the fungus has five spore-stages,
two on the pines, one of which infects the ribes, and three on the
ribes, the last of which reinfects white pines. One of the two types of
reproductive body formed on the pines is called an aeciospore. Since
aeciospores can infect only ribes and certain of the spores formed on the
ribes can infect only the pines again, a convenient method for control of
the disease is obvious: eradicate all ribes up to a proper distance from
pines and keep them away.
When control work first was undertaken, not only was it necessary to
know the proper distance for elimination of ribes, for purposes of local
control, but it was also desirable to find out how far the various types of
spores were carried.
In those early days it was believed that the three types of disseminable
spores of the rust- fungus— aeciospores from pine to ribes in the spring,
urediospores from ribes to ribes during the summer and sporidia from
ribes to pine in the fall— were each capable of being carried ( by the wind,
for the most part) to a distance of a few hundred feet to infect the proper
host. I had begun to wonder why the distance was said to be so short,
especially when out in Wisconsin I heard about the occasional great dust-storms
and also heard for the first time the intimate details of how twisters
carried tin roofs from county to county or picked up a heavy iron bar and
drove it into a tree across the street. Now, of course, the violent phenomena
are one thing and the mild winds something quite different; but, on the
113
other hand, when one kicked or struck a heavily infected or blistered tree
and saw a conspicuous cloud of spores arise and hover or drift away, it
was natural to wonder why such dust- like material would be carried only
a few hundred feet.
Accordingly, I was allowed to attack this problem of distances of dis­semination
of the spores in my summer work with the Office of Forest
Pathology. I began with the aeciospores from the pine. To myself, at
least, I made the guess that they could infect ribes after a single hop of at
least 25 miles, but I began small in the hope of obtaining any distance over
a thousand feet. While others were trapping spores with various ingenious
devices over flat country and on mountain tops, I made the attack on the
problem by observation of natural infections under the proper conditions.
If I could find an infected ribes bush at the time of the first '' jump" of
the aeciospores from the pine in the spring, with no infected pines or no
pines whatsoever within a certain radius, I could conclude with certainty
that the wind had carried the spore or spores that distance in a viable
condition. I say " with certainty," although it has been objected to me that
birds, insects, cows and humans cannot be ruled out with certainty.
I therefore set out to find what I got to calling " centers"— ribes
bushes with first- generation spring infections— in areas where pines were
conspicuous by their absence. I would then be compelled to examine care­fully
the largest circular area possible around this center up to the nearest
pine or pines, perhaps going over an interloping or straggling pine within
the circle to determine that there was not a single possible blister- rust
canker within that radius.
Now, there arose unforeseen difficulties. The first one of these was to
find pine- free areas that appeared to be likely prospects for my centers.
As one goes over a piece of northeastern countryside casually, there appear
to be many wide- open spaces where there is not a pine in sight, but upon
close investigation there are pines aplenty. The second difficulty was to
make sure that, when pines did occur, there was not a canker within the
circle of the determined radius.
This meant not only great care but it meant a lot of trudging over all
sorts of ground and through all sorts of vegetation. It meant being a
pedestrian for certain. With a radius of 1/ 4 mile, only 1/ 5 square mile
had to be covered and there was only 2 miles of pacing in the four direc­tions.
With a radius of 1/ 2 mile, there was only 3/ 4 square mile to be
covered back and forth and only 4 miles of pacing. With a radius of
3/ 4 mile, however, 1 3/ 4 square miles had to be covered with at least 6
miles of pacing; with a mile radius, the area was over 3 square miles and
the pacing at least 8 miles; and with a radius of 1 1/ 2 miles, the area was
7 square miles and the pacing alone 12 miles.
I started out in Maine, which, in spite of its proud title of The Pine- Tree
114
State, is obviously not blanketed with pines and was not 25 years ago.
I found centers at various places but I could find no place in which, as I
started out from the infected ribes bush, I did not run into pines galore
within a few hundred feet. I next tried the Adirondacks and found a few
places where I could get pine- free distances of 1/ 4 to 1/ 2 mile. Finally,
a native of the village where I was staying told me that he knew of an area
where there were no pines for miles and he took me, like Moses, up to a
hill overlooking some country in the Essex- Whallonsburg section west of
Lake Champlain. There before me lay quite an expanse of fields and pas­tures
in a dairy country, without a pine in view. I found some infected
ribes in the right location and after a lot of pacing I got a circle of about
3/ 4 mile radius, with the outlying pines much closer than they appeared
from a casual inspection of the terrain. Then began the tramping over the
circle, back and forth and up and down, covering fencerows, swales,
swamps, small patches of woods, etc. I found a few small pines in the
circle, which seemed to pop up from nowhere when I had my eyes to the
ground and not just looking around in general. These were uninfected.
And when all was done and I was going away, I found one more pine
about 6 inches in diameter, right by the side of a road that I had traversed
several times. This had to be examined twig by twig and fortunately for
my results was found to be likewise disease- free.
With this distance of 3/ 4 mile established, I set out for Wisconsin and
Minnesota and there after some criss- crossing of the country east of the
St. Croix River, I found a likely region. I finally found some infected
ribes in a favorable location that had a circle with a radius of 1 1/ 4 miles.
It took me quite a while to examine the 4 square miles or so ( a little of it
water) but everything was rosy until the very end, when I found an 18-
inch- diameter pine in a spot that would materially reduce my 1 1/ 4 miles.
I had to obtain permission from the owner of the property to cut this tree
down and then I had a laborious task inspecting every single inch of living
twig, branch and trunk. Fortunately again, the tree was canker- free.
This Rush Lake center was very valuable for me. I not only bad a dis­tance
of dissemination of aeciospores from pine to ribes of over a mile but
the general situation set me thinking. Not being a pedestrian by heredity,
natural capacity, training or predilection, why should I not use my head
and the seat of my trousers instead of my heels and try to find a satisfac­tory
aqueous area in place of a piece of terra firma which demanded the
expenditure of such a quantity of perspiration, calories and shoe- leather?
Besides, having spent a great deal of my youth on Cape Cod and the Maine
coast, I was something of a sea- faring man in a modest way. Therefore,
I set sail ( if the reader will pardon the metaphor and forget the interven­ing
1,000- odd miles of dry land) for the New England waters, fresh or
salt. I thought of Lake Winnipesaukee first— in white- pine country, of
115
good size and with islands ( and, need I add, in vacation country?). I
spent part of a good summer going over the lake in a motor boat, looking
for islands that might have infected ribes a sufficient distance from any
pine on the mainland or on other islands. The best I could do for distance,
however, was about a half a mile.
My next inspiration was the Isles of Shoals off Portsmouth, New Hamp­shire,
and Kittery Point, Maine— surely with as pine- free a stretch in
between as one could ask for. My one worry was concerning the presence
of any ribes bushes at all on those almost bare, wind- swept, fog- soaked
rocks and my ability to find what must be rather measly bushes if there
were any. I learned later that someone else had had the same thought
before me and had found some bushes, but I did not know of this at the
time. I traipsed over several of the islands, especially the larger ones first,
and had no luck; I found a few scrubby poplars in the hollows, as tall as
the hollows were deep, but nothing else shrubby or woody, as I recall.
I tried the northernmost and most inaccessible island, Duck Island, last,
with no feelings of confidence. Here, however, carefully avoiding nests
and young of herring gulls at every step, I found two rather windbeaten
bushes and I was certainly as excited as I am ever likely to become as I
turned over leaf after leaf, looking for blister- rust infection- spots. I finally
found a few— enough. I was assured that no human being had visited
Duck Island since the last duck- hunting season, and the possibility of birds
carrying the spores appeared to be very remote. Here then was something
of the sort I had been looking for— miles of spread by the aeciospores
instead of hundreds of feet. The Isles are 5 1/ 2 miles from the nearest
mainland and about 7 miles from the location of the old, severe, blister-rust
infestation at Kittery Point.
This figure soon became a puny one because in the far West, infected
ribes were found 125 miles from the nearest known white pine, but at the
time it was the triumph of an idea and a soul- satisfying conclusion to a lot
of work that was not overly encouraging on many an occasion.
Qrowing Hardy ( Primulas
Experiences of a New Jersey Amateur
By Edward O. Birch
OVER and over again, we hear and read that it is easy to grow primulas
on the Pacific Coast, but difficult to grow them here in the East.
Thus many gardeners, discouraged from the start, never attempt to
ascertain what the really hardy primroses will do for them. What follows
116
is written with the hope that it may help to interest those who have not
as yet tried primulas, or who have tried and failed.
I have seen vigorous plants growing on their own in abandoned gardens
of old homes and vacant estates, large clumps sometimes taking possession
of open ground around them. Therefore, I think that, despite what is
heard and read, we should put out of our minds the idea that primulas
are difficult to grow in the East, and at least have the satisfaction of finding
out for ourselves.
Here is my experience in Short Hills, N. J., with various forms and
varieties of P acaulis and P. polyanthus.
but outside of that they were identical
with the others at all times of the year.
The ruggedness of this yellow hose- in-hose
stirred my interest in primroses. 1
began raising other varieties, including
P. polyanthus, from seed, and had equal
success. Now my plants are in all pos­sible
locations; naturally in the partial
shade of shrubs or filtered shade of trees
the foliage holds up better during sum­mer
months.
The First Plant
Some 3- ears ago I was given a single
plant; a yellow hose- in- hose, or duplex
type. In two years this developed into
a nice clump. The soil in which it grew
was a good friable loam to which peat­moss
and manure had been added a year
or so before. Under pressure of hand
the soil felt spongy; it would absorb and
hold water well; drainage was good and
the soil never soggy; it would not bake
hard when dried by the sun. Under foot
it felt similar to soil you would find at
the edge of a woodland or in good turf.
That is, the sci! was solid but not hard;
rain would not wash it away, but in­stead
would be absorbed.
Anyone can have such a soil with the
aid of peatmoss or leaf- mold, if avail­able.
It is soil of a texture in which
azaleas, mountain laurel, and rhododen­drons
grow best. One need not worry
about chemical analysis, or pH, but only
about texture. Then when the plants
are established all that will be necessary
is an annual, early spring sprinkling of
dry manure or perhaps cottonseed meal.
Hundreds of Plants From One
The clump previously referred to was,
at the end of its bloom, separated into
eight or ten divisions, and the top half of
the foliage was cut off before replanting.
Dividing at this time enabled young
plants to become established before wint­er
set in. By continual division of the
older clumps, I have had hundreds of
plants from this one original yellow hose-in-
hose. I used them to edge three
borders, facing south, east and west, the
one facing south being in full sun all
day. In August, when the plants all
withered somewhat before starting fall
growth, those facing south withered
more than those facing east and west,
Winter and Summer Care
While writing this in November the
foliage is full. I will soon cover the
ground between plants with about one-half
inch of peatmoss, which will be
allowed to remain in spring. Young
plants going through their first winter
will, in addition to peatmoss, receive a
light covering of salt hay, about three
inches, not packed, but loose enough so
that a bit of green shows through here
and there. This will keep young roots
from heaving with the thaws. Hay is re­moved
early in spring. Peat, when al­lowed
to remain, will act as a mulch in
spring, assist in keeping down weeds,
help conserve moisture, and in addition
be a top dressing as an aid to new crown
growth. It will also make artificial water­ing
safer as mulch will prevent the soil
from being washed away from roots.
During the hot weather of June, July
and August, the soil must not be allowed
to dry out. If rains do not occur at this
time of year, soil of the texture described
should be watered about once a week. At
least, that is my experience, but in other
sections conditions will vary and one's
own judgment will have to be used.
Seed Sown in Soil
When propagating from seed, I sow in
soil, and think it the best medium for a
117
Primulas used as an edging for a border of Azalea Schlippenbachii,
home gardener or amateur growing for
his own requirements. Sphagnum moss,
vermiculite, etc., are all right for pro­fessionals
who are prepared to fertilize
properly at all stages, but if the seed's
natural medium ( soil) is used it will
carry seedlings to the time of transplant­ing
without fertilization, which is always
a danger to young plants.
Seed is sown in flats, or preferably
wide, shallow pots. If the depth from
the bottom of the container to the top
of the soil is about three and one- half
inches, I use one- half inch of drainage
material. Equal parts of peatmoss and
coarse sand or gravel will drain the soil
and also hold moisture. For the soil it­self
I use equal parts of good loam,
leafmold, and sand, thoroughly mixed
and screened. If leafmold is not obtain­able,
pulverized peatmoss can be substi­tuted.
I tamp it down gently, without
letting it pack, then water it thoroughly
by setting the container in water that
comes to within an inch of top, leaving
it there until moisture shows at the top
of the soil. Then I scatter seed thinly
on the surface so that seedlings will have
circulation of air when they show up, and
barely cover the seed with sand or fine
dustlike soil. The pane of glass with
which I cover the container is removed
as soon as the seedlings show. As they
shoot up, I carefully sift a light cover­ing
of sand or soft, fine soil between
them, being careful not to cover leaves.
This is important; the seed was sown on
top of the soil and this light covering
will give added support until the roots
really get down.
Handling the Seedlings
I generally transplant after the second
leaves appear in order to get more plants,
and place them about an inch apart in
similar soil and containers where they
remain until placed in a nursery bed in
open ground.
If one does not have facilities for
additional flats or pots, the seedlings
can merely be thinned to about one inch
apart. Transplanting is easy. I formerly
used a knife or match stick to prick out
seedlings, but finally made a gadget which
works to perfection; roots are not dam­aged
and soil does not stick to it. I
take an old tooth brush; cut off the
brush end and grind a point to that end
about twice the length of a pencil point.
This readily lifts the seedling and also
makes a hole to receive it. The rounded
end of the handle is used to tamp soil
around the transplant. A small bulb
spray such as is used in the laundry is
good for watering the seedlings after
transplanting. They must not be beaten
down. Seedlings in containers outdoors
should be protected from late morning
and afternoon sun, also from heavy
rains.
118
When to Sow Seed
Fresh seed of the current spring will
germinate faster if sown in late July
than if sown in late winter inside or
early next spring outside. Also, all
work can be done outside, a factor which
will possibly avoid setting out some weak
plants. Water used before germination
should be tepid; after seedlings are up it
may be cool. As soon as the plants are
large enough, they may be set in a
nursery bed where they will be mulched
at once with peatmoss and at the begin­ning
of winter mulched with salt hay as
previously outlined.
If seed is sown indoors in late winter,
or outdoors in early spring, it helps germ­ination
if the soil is made wet with hot
water, but not hot enough to burn the
hands — say 120°. Next day, water of
the same temperature should be applied
again. If further watering is necessary
before germination, it should be tepid.
After seedlings are up, cool water may
be used, as for the July sowing. If
plants are in a room of a house where
heat is on, they should be under glass
at all times. When the glass shows moist­ure,
it should be opened slightly until the
moisture disappears, then closed again.
Plants should be set in the nursery bed
in spring as soon as conditions warrant
moving them.
When seedlings have been taken from
the first container, the soil should not be
further disturbed; germination is irregu­lar
and more plants may appear.
Not all the seeds will reproduce true
to the color of the parent. If this is
desired 100 percent, all propagation must
be by division.
From Seed to Border
From the foregoing it will be seen
there are really three plantings before a
permanent location is reached for the
primulas: first, for sowing, second, the
transfer to similar containers for proper
spacing; third, to the nursery bed; then
finally into the border.
All that has been written is from ex­perience
in the climate of northern New
Jersey. There are variations one will
learn from his own experience. For in­stance,
in much colder regions it may be
desirable to use salt hay as a covering
every winter. But no matter where he is
located, I want to tell the grower not to
over- fertilize, or he will get foliage at
the expense of flowers. As long as
growth is good, he should let well enough
alone.
"*- fc »
David D. Keck Appointed Head Curator
Succeeding Dr. Gleason Jan. 1
DR. David D. Keck of the Carnegie Institution of Washington at
Stanford University has accepted an appointment as Head Curator
of the New York Botanical Garden. He will succeed Dr. H. A. Gleason
in that post on January 1, 1951.
institution's staff on the Stanford campus.
By that time he had already been
working for two years in collaboration
with Jens C. Clausen and William M.
Hiesey as a research team in experimen­tal
taxonomy. At the meetings of the
American Association for the Advance­ment
of Science in New York in De­cember
1949, this team was awarded the
Mary Soper Pope medal of the Cran-brook
Institute of Science.
Graduated from Pomona College in
1925, Dr. Keck received a master's degree
from there the following year, and a
Ph. D. from the University of California
at Berkeley in 1930. Meanwhile, in 1926,
he j oined the Carnegie Institution of
Washington at Berkeley as assistant to
H. M. Hall, and three years later moved
to Stanford to continue their experimen­tal
project in a new laboratory building.
Since 1934 he has been a member of the
119
Dr. Keek's many published papers,
dating from 1925, reflect his interests
in taxonomy, genetics, and cytology of
the flowering plants, as well as in the
natural sciences as a whole. His principal
studies have been in the genera Penste-mon,
Poa, Artemisia, Potentilla, and in
Madia and its relatives. He has also pub­lished
notes on Orthocarpus and Elaplo-pappus,
among other groups. In addition
to his purely taxonomic studies, in com­bination
with the research team he has
contributed such subjects as " Experimen­tal
Studies on the Nature of Species" to
the publications of the Carnegie Institu­tion
of Washington in 1940, 1945, and
1948; " Regional Differentiation in Plant
Species" to American Naturalist; also
" Relations between Climate and Intra-specific
Variation in Plants" and " Hered­ity
of Geographically and Ecologically
Isolated Races" to American Naturalist.
With Dr. P. A. Munz, Director of the
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Dr.
Keck has been working on the prepara­tion
of a new manual of the plants of
California, on the basis of his experi­mental
studies.
Dr. Keck is a member of the A. A. A. S.,
American Society of Naturalists, Society
for the Study of Evolution, American
Society of Plant Taxonomists, Botanical
Society of America, Torrey Botanical
Club, Western Society of Naturalists,
and the California Botanical Society, of
which he was treasurer from 1931 to 1940
and vice- president in 1945 and 1947. He
is an honorary life member of the Cali­fornia
Academy of Sciences.
At the New York Botanical Garden
he will be the fourth Head Curator in
the history of the institution, Dr. John
K. Small in 1906 having been the first
to assume the title, which he retained
until his death in 1932. Dr. F. J. Seaver
served from 1942 until his retirement in
1948, with Dr. Gleason filling the post
both before and after this period.
Dr. Keck will be in New York in May
on his way to Europe, where, after tour­ing
a large portion of the continent by
car, he will present a paper at the Seventh
International Botanical Congress in Stock­holm
in July. Returning from Europe
he will complete his year's work at the
Carnegie Institution before assuming his
new position at the New York Botanical
Garden.
Notes, News, and Comment
Book Service Department. A new book
service department has been opened by
the New York Botanical Garden in the
Museum Building. For the first time, the
Garden will handle books of outside pub­lishers,
instead of only its own. Some of
these are books written by members of
the staff, others are recommended books
on botany, gardening, and related sub­jects.
The volumes are on display in cases
near the entrance to the Museum Build­ing
and are on sale at the Information
Booth on the main floor.
For books that are ordered by mail,
there will be a mailing charge of 100 a
volume.
Postcards. Colored postcards showing
five scenes of the New York Botanical
Garden are now on sale in the Museum
Building at 50 each. The pictures, which
have been made from kodachrome views,
show ( 1) forsythia in spring beneath the
bare branches of the trees, ( 2) daffodils
on the slope with evergreens and flower­ing
cherries in the background, ( 3) aza­leas
in a woodland planting, ( 4) a water-lily,
and ( 5) chrysanthemums in front of
the central dome of the Conservatory.
Individual cards or sets will be sent by
mail without extra charge.
The Garden also has on sale eleven
year- round views in high quality photo­graphs
on postcards. These show the
Museum Building, Conservatory dome,
tropical rain forest, a flowering cherry
tree, Cattleya orchids in greenhouse, the
Montgomery Conifer Collection, rose gar­den,
perennial border, daffodils, iris, and
the rock garden. The price of these has
been reduced to 3 for 100, and they too
will be sent by mail without extra charge.
Tapestry Booklet. The Garden's book­let
" Flora of the Unicorn Tapestries" by
E. J. Alexander and Carol H. Woodward
has been reissued in an edition of 3,000
copies. Two illustrations have been added
to this printing, showing a detail of the
second tapestry in the series and the en­tire
seventh, the concluding scene, show­ing
the unicorn in captivity.
Honorary Curator. The title of Honor­ary
Curator of Economic Botany, which
has been held by B. A. Krukoff since
1940, was eliminated by the Board of
120
Managers at a meeting of the Executive
Committee March 27.
For many years Mr. Krukoff has been
interested in medicinal plants. He has
done extensive exploring in the interior
of South America, and has deposited his
herbarium specimens with the Garden.
Since his direct association with the in­stitution,
he has published papers on the
American members of Erythrina, Strycli-nos,
and the Menispermaceae, and on the
botanical components of curare. Mr.
Krukoff is associated with Merck & Co.
For the past year or more, he has been
away from New York the greater part
of the time, continuing his work in
Guatemala and elsewhere.
Garden Design Exhibit. Mrs. Helen M,
Fox has been chairman of an exhibit of
photographs, drawings, blueprints, books
and prints illustrating garden design,
which is being held at the New York
Public Library from March 17 to May
19. Several photographs from the New
York Botanical Garden are included in
the exhibit, which emphasizes garden de­signs
suitable for the northeastern states.
Mrs. Fox is also the compiler of a
selected list of books appearing in a
booklet, " Planning & Planting Your Gar­den,"
which is available by mail from the
New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue
and 42nd Street, New York 18, N. Y.,
for 500.
Members' Day. Orchids were displayed
through the courtesy of Thomas Young,
Inc., of which C. R. Beckert is President,
at the Members' Day program of the
New York Botanical Garden in the audi­torium
of the New York Genealogical
Society April 13. The speaker was C.
Leslie Erickson, who has been working
with orchids since the age of 14 and who,
with his father, is now employed by
Thomas Young, Inc., at Bound Brook,
N. J.
Staff Conference. John J. Wurdack,
Technical Assistant at the New York
Botanical Garden, spoke on " The Sand
Dune Flora of Brazil" at the monthly
staff conference held Wednesday, April
12, in the Members' Room. His talk was
illustrated with kodachromes he took and
specimens he collected in Brazil during
the war, also with vegetational and rain­fall
maps and with books contributing to
the subject.
Spring Tours. The Volunteer Associates
of the New York Botanical Garden have
arranged two separate garden tours this
spring. On May 2 members of the New
York Botanical Garden and garden clubs
were invited to visit the gardens of
Mr. Pierre S. Du Pont and Mr. & Mrs.
Henry F. Du Pont at Wilmington, Dela­ware.
On May 23 a trip will be made to
Millbrook, New York, to visit the gar­dens
of Mrs. Oakleigh Thorne and Mr.
& Mrs. Walter Beck.
Booklets. The downtown office of the
New York Botanical Garden has pre­pared
three booklets which are obtainable
at 801 Madison Avenue, New York 21,
and also in the Garden's new Book Ser­vice
Department in the Museum Building.
Two of them have appeared as articles
in the magazine issued by the downtown
office, The Garden. These are " A Garden
for Gourmets" by Albert C. Burrage,
250, and " Our Rose Varieties and Their
Malmaison Heritage" by Edwin De T.
Bechtel, $ 1. A third booklet is a cook
book of favorite recipes of members of
the Volunteer Associates, $ 1.
Visitors. Dorothy Fensholt, graduate
student at Northwestern University,
spent ten days at the Garden in April
studying algae. Clark T. Rogerson of
Cornell worked on Ascomycetes in the
herbarium the last of April. Clara S.
Hires, head of the Mistaire Laboratories,
Millburn, N. J., with two of her assis­tants,
Beverly Heller and Mrs. Charles
W. Cram made investigations on mosses
in the herbarium Mar. 29.
Among other recent visitors have been
John A. Stevenson of the Plant Industry
Station, Beltsville, Md.; John T. Middle-ton,
University of California at River­side;
Carl L. Withner, Brooklyn College;
M. A. Johnson, Rutgers; Eula White-house
of Southern Methodist University,
Dallas; H. K. Svenson, American Mu­seum
of Natural History; Howard E.
Brossman, Superintendent of the Mitchell
Park Conservatory, Milwaukee; and Mr.
& Mrs. B. F. Miller, of Laramie, Wyo­ming.
Mrs. Miller is the daughter of
Aven Nelson.
Douglas H. Allen of New York, inter­national
industrialist and author of
" History of the Operations of the Rubber
Development Corporation," was a lunch­eon
guest at the Garden April 11. W. A.
121
Sexton of Imperial Chemical Industries,
Ltd., Manchester, England, Dr. G. Morel
of Harvard University, Dr. N. F. Stanley
of Sydney, Australia, and Dr. Hasan M.
Yusef, on his way back to Fouad I.
University, Egypt, were among other
visitors of early spring.
Chobei Takida, head of Japan's lead­ing
pharmaceutical house, at Osaka, spent
the day at the Garden Feb. 24.
Dr. E. B. Hirshberg of the Schering
Corporation, Bloomfield, N. J. made in­vestigations
of Dioscorea at the Garden
recently.
Advisory Council. Eight new members
were elected to the Advisory Council of
the Garden at the meeting of the Board
of Managers Feb. 23. They are Mrs.
Warren R. Austin, Mrs. Neville Jay
Booker, Mrs. Harry T. Peters, Mrs.
Wallace S. Whittaker, and Mrs. Robert
C. Hill, of New York City, Mrs. Ray­mond
Gunnison of Pawling, N. Y., Mrs.
Langdon Simmons of Greenwich, Conn.,
and Mrs. John Senior of Lenox, Mass.
Mrs. James Russell Parsons, who was
elected to the Advisory Council in Febru­ary
1931, resigned in February 1950. She
had also been a member of the Corpora­tion
since 1933.
Board of Managers. Dr. Thomas Lewis
of S. B. Penick & Co., has been elected
to the Board of Managers in the class
of 1950.
Consultant. Dr. A. B. Stout, who re­tired
from the staff of the New York
Botanical Garden in 1947, left his home
at Pleasantville, New York, in early
April to spend the summer as consultant
to the W. Atlee Burpee Co., Floradale
Farms, Lompoc, California.
Floral Flyer. Members of the New
York Botanical Garden will be granted
ten free rides a year on The Floral
Flyer. The membership card will be used
as a ticket, to be punched by the con­ductor
on the tractor train.
NOTICES AND REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS
North of the Golden Gate
MARIN FLORA. J. T. Howell. 320
pages, 2 maps. 24 photographs ( by
Charles T. Townsend). University of
California Press, Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1949. $ 4.50.
Probably few visitors to San Francisco
have failed to see, rising above the waters
of the bay, the gentle silhouette of Mount
Tamalpais, landmark of the Marin coun­try
which lies just to the north of the
Golden Gate Bridge. They may also have
visited the miniature redwood forest in
Mill Valley, the sandy Pacific beaches,
and perhaps even the picturesque, light­house-
crowned headland of Point Reyes.
If they have done any of these things,
they cannot help but enjoy Mr. Town-send's
beautiful photographs of Marin
scenes.
The plants of this Marin County are
the subject of Mr. Howell's attractive,
lovingly written book. Within an area
of only 529 square miles, he has recorded
the occurrence of some 1,313 species,
which he estimates to be nearly twenty-five
percent of the total flora of the
state. This remarkable abundance is at
least partly due to the varied habitats
and geological backgrounds comprised
within this small area. The existence of
serpentine outcrops on Mount Tamalpais
and Tiburon Peninsula, for example, is
responsible for many highly localized dis­tributions.
He finds the Golden Gate,
however, to have been of very little sig­nificance,
at least in the past, as a barrier
to the migration of species.
There are provocative and informative
discussions of the physiographic features,
geological structures, soils, climate, plant
associations, floristics, and botanical ex­ploration.
The keys are full and ap­parently
readily workable. Although there
are no taxonomic descriptions, there are
122
abundant citations of localities, and nu­merous
critical laxonomic and other
notes.
In a state, most of whose inhabitants
originated " somewhere else," it is scarce­ly
surprising that some 300 of the plants
should also be immigrants. Since this is
a larger number of aliens than Jepson's
Manual of 1925 included for the entire
state, it is perhaps symptomatic of what
is happening to California's vegetation.
It is all the more fortunate, therefore,
that Mr. Howell has so thoroughly docu­mented
the present flora of this accessible
region before it has been thoroughly en­gulfed
in the onslaught of ever- expanding
Suburbia.
LINCOLN CONSTANCE
University of California,
Berkeley.
Clements, Condensed
DYNAMICS OF VEGETATION. Frederic
E. Clements. Compiled and edited by
B. W. Allred and Edith S. Clements.
296 pages, illustrations, glossary, index.
H. W. Wilson, New York. 1949. $ 3.75.
Dr. Clements was a very interesting
man, to whom the writer of this notice
is greatly indebted for encouragement
and material help at a time when these
were greatly needed. Some of the ideas
basic to Clements' system of vegetation-units
and their developmental relations
are very different from those held by
most field botanists. Professor A. G.
Tansley characterized him as an " uncom­promising
idealist." Yet his awareness
of the observable facts was very similar
to that of the realists; it was in inter­pretation
of facts and in application of
terms that most of the differences arose.
Much of his writing is taken too literally
by students.
The present volume is a reprinting in
somewhat shortened form of articles and
essays covering these chapter headings:
The nature and role of plant succession;
Competition in plant societies; Plant
indicators; Nature and structure of the
climax; The relict method in dynamic
ecology; Climaxes, succession, and con­servation
; Climatic cycles and human
populations in the Great Plains; and
Ecology in the public service. The photo­graphs
are numerous and excellent.
The same general criticisms and com­mendations
could be made for this work
as for the publications which it summa­rizes.
Some of the too- strong statements
are perhaps more discernible in the con­densation.
The book is well edited, beautifully
printed and bound, moderately priced.
It succeeds admirably in its objective, to
bring together, in more generally avail­able
form, the writings of Dr. Clements
in this field of his principal interest.
ARTHUR G. VESTAL
University of Illinois
Fungi Infecting Man
BIOLOGY OF PATHOGENIC FUNGI.
Edited by Walter J. Nickerson. 236
pages, illustrated, indexed. Chronica
Botanica Co., Waltham, Mass.; Stechert-
Hafner, Inc., New York, N. Y. 1947.
$ 5.
The short title given this book by the
publisher may mislead some of its readers
to expect to see that the biology of plant
pathogens will also be considered. How­ever,
the editor points out in his preface
that the aim was to discuss some of the
aspects of the biology of some of those
fungi pathogenic for man. The foreword
by J. Gardner Hopkins, the international­ly
known dermatologist, further empha­sizes
this limitation of scope. He points
out some of the important deficiencies
that have heretofore hampered the under­standing
of fungus infections of human
beings. He urges that the commotion
over terminology and attempts to follow
rules of nomenclature should not obscure
the fact that much information on the
biology of fungi pathogenic to man has
been provided by botanists, chemists and
physicians. One has but to read the
twelve chapters contributed by persons
of wide reputation to see what has been
done in recent years and to realize the
great need for further research along
these lines.
The editor, W. J. Nickerson, has writ­ten
an interesting introduction as well
as chapters on respiration and fermenta­tion
including metabolic products; and
with J. W. Williams a chapter on fungus
nutrition and metabolism. Additional
chapters by authors known international­ly
include results of their own researches
and bibliographies covering some aspects
of their fields. These contributors are
J. Lodder, A. de Minjer, A. L. Carrion,
Margarita Silva, Rhoda W, Benham,
C. W. Emmons, R. Ciferri, P. Redaelli,
F. T. Wolf, D. S. Martin and R. L. Peck.
123
It would, of course, be impossible to
cover the whole field of pathogens
thoroughly in a volume of some 250
pages, but considering these limitations
one will find in this book much valuable
information, as well as sources of further
information indicated in the various bib­liographies.
B. O. DODGE
Heredity and Breeding
ADVANCES IN GENETICS. Edited by
M. Demerec. 440 pages, index, illus­trations.
Academic Press, New York.
1947. $ 7.50.
This volume presents critical reviews
of research on ten specific genetic prob­lems.
Those dealing with plants include:
cytogenetics and breeding of forage
crops, by Sanford S. Atwood; cytogene­tics
and speciation in Crepis by Ernest B.
Babcock; origins and evolution of maize
by Paul C. Mangelsdorf; types of poly­ploids,
by G. Ledyard Stebbins, J r . ; and
cytogenetics of Gossypium and the prob­lem
of the origin of the New World
cottons, by S. G. Stephens.
This is the first of a proposed series,
the purpose of which, as stated in the
preface, is to have critical summaries of
outstanding genetic problems, written by
competent geneticists, appear in a single
publication and to be written in such
form that they will be useful as refer­ence
material for geneticists and also as
a source of information to nongeneticists.
As to scope, the articles are expected to
deal with both theoretical and practical
problems of breeding, heredity, and re­lated
fields.
A. B. STOUT.
Highest Power Magnification
ELECTRON MICROSCOPY. Technique
and Application. Ralph W. G. Wyckoff.
248 pages, illustrations, bibliography,
index. Interscience Publishers, New
York and London. 1949. $ 5.
This is a beautifully illustrated, simple
introduction to the opening field of elec­tron
microscopy. The text is easy to
read. The biologist who has not yet seen
such forms as diatoms under the electron
microscope has a poor concept of their
essential architecture.
VlRGENE KAVANAGH.
Relations of Plants With Water
WATER IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF
PLANTS. A. S. Crafts, H. B. Currier, &
C. R. Stocking. 240 pages, illustrations,
tables, bibliography, index. Chronica
Botanica Co., Waltham, Mass.; Stechert-
Hafner, New York. 1949. $ 6.
The unique feature of this book is the
large amount of material on the physical
chemistry of water in relation to plant
processes and conditions. This is treated
in such a manner as to be intelligible to
readers with only a limited knowledge of
that field.
While the book is of particular value
to instructors and investigators in the
field of plant physiology, it will be useful
to every plant scientist who is interested
in water relations. The chapters dealing
with the structure of water, the proper­ties
of solutions, and water as a plant
component bring together material never
before summarized satisfactorily for
plant physiologists. These chapters alone
would justify publication of the book.
The discussion of osmosis and osmotic
quantities of plant cells is very thorough
and fortunately uses the terminology of
Bobbink & Atkins
" GARDEN GEMS"
for your Garden Library
Build your garden with the help of this out­standing
catalog. In it are described and il­lustrated
in color the best of the New and
Old- fashioned Roses; Unusual Evergreen
Shrubs and Vines; Azaleas and Rhododen­drons;
Magnolias; Lilacs and many other
Flowering Shrubs; all the novelty and old
favorite Perennial Flowers and Ground Cov­ers,
and a host of other rare and unusual
" Garden Gems" ; designed to help you plan
and plant your garden.
Free east of the Mississippi; 35 cents
elsewhere. Customers of record receive
their copies automatically.
Visitors are always welcome at our nur­series
located about nine miles from the
New Jersey side of the Lincoln and Holland
Tunnels and George Washington Bridge.
Less than thirty minutes from central New
York.
Bobbink & Atkins
Rose Growers and Nurserymen
401 Paterson Ave., East Rutherford, N. J .
124
Meyer, which is familiar to most readers.
The varied and conflicting evidence con­cerning
the occurrence of non- osmotic or
" active" water intake by plant cells and
tissues has also been carefully summar­ized.
Water relations of the plant as a
whole are discussed in terms of absorp­tion,
translocation, and water loss. The
book is documented by about 800 refer­ences
and illustrated by many tables, fig­ures,
and graphs.
PAUL J. KRAMER,
Duke University.
For Gardeners
From Coast to Coast
IRIS FOR EVERY GARDEN. Sydney
B. Mitchell. 224 pages, photographs,
index, drawings by Tom Craig. M.
Barrows, New York. 1949. $ 3.
This is a much needed book for Ameri­cans,
as recent popular publications on
iris have been confined to England and,
while valuable to the expert, are not
suited for the general gardener in this
country. It is a clearly written and
practical book, well illustrated, and easy
to use. Culture, propagation, breeding,
treatment of seed and seedlings, pollen,
diseases, and other subj ects are well
covered. The many gardeners who think
there are nothing but the old " dooryard"
varieties of iris should be encouraged to
try their hand on a newer species or
horticultural variety.
Such a book is necessarily limited, but
Dr. Mitchell has given the essentials. My
only adverse criticism is that in his histo­ry
of American breeding he has neglect­ed
to mention such an important person
as the late E. B. Williamson of Indiana,
who made the first crosses here between
the regelia and dwarf beared groups.
There are many splendid varieties still
available, descendants of those that
Williamson and Paul Cook raised. In
fact, many of the better irises in the
United States exist because of Mr.
Williamson and also Grace Sturtevant.
Present- day breeders are too much given
to concentrating on the huge- flowered,
tall sorts.
I do not agree that William Mohr was
the " outstanding American breeder" be­cause
I am familiar with the work of
others who are barely mentioned or
completely neglected in the book.
It has to be a limited book, of course,
and it should be to make it easy to
handle and of a reasonable price. There­fore
I feel that, with these exceptions, it
is really well carried out, and that it is,
at the same time, an attractive, readable
book.
ETHEL ANSON S. PECKHAM
Three New Textbooks
Of General Botany
COLLEGE BOTANY. Clarence J. Hylan-der
& Oran B. Stanley. 638 pages,
illustrated, indexed. Macmillan, New
York. 1949. $ 5.
In this new text, Drs. Hylander and
Stanley of Colgate University have stated
admirably the reasons for such a book
and, in general outline, have fulfilled their
intentions. The line drawings are calcu­lated
to sustain the interest of the general
college student; the text is not " stuffy";
presentation is ideal for students in edu­cational
curricula planning to teach bi­ology
or botany; and the text material
is well- balanced, with sections on general
morphological considerations, classifica­tion,
ecology and geography, heredity and
evolution, and paleobotany.
In several respects, however, serious
students may question the material pre­sented.
The drawings are perhaps too
diagrammatic; use of common names
throughout may be criticized ( although
an appendix of scientific names is in­cluded)
; and the portrayal of classifica­tion
by " trees" certainly oversimplifies
and confuses systematics and phylogeny.
Other minor disputable points include
( p. 347) the sketch of Amanita without
an annulus; the discussion of distinctions
between " monocots" and " dicots" and
their phylogeny ( for example, the dis­puted
primitiveness of hydrophytes and
the " absence of endosperm" in dicots);
illustration of Equisetum arvense with
yellowish fertile shoots as typical ( albeit
familiar) of horsetails; and the selection
of so many illustrations from the same
few genera of the Liliaceae.
Still, the text may well be used for the
presentation of a semi- cultural botanical
course in a general college curriculum.
COLLEGE BOTANY. Harry J. Fuller &
Oswald Tippo. 993 pages, illustrated,
indexed. Henry Holt, New York. 1949.
$ 5.75.
_ Drs. Fuller and Tippo of the Univer­sity
of Illinois have written a standard
introductory botany, suitable for the gen­eral
college course or, with use of supple-
125
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jewels for your garden.
J ^ W ^ J/ ee* ROSES
Babe Ruth — Glorious new rose- pink hybrid tea.
Strong, vigorous plants bloom profusely.
Tom Breneman— A delightfully fragrant hybrid tea
of radiant coral rose. Extremely hardy.
As well as 150 other varieties including the superb
1950 " All America Rose Selections."
J& vsfo Mm CHRYSANTHEMUMS
Bronze Cactus — Glowing Indian copper
bronze flowers with subtle salmon shadings
bloom abundantly on vigorous 2V£' plants
from September on.
^ « . CYDONIAS
Spitfire — Early flowering, 7 foot high
shrub is covered with huge, crimson flow­ers.
Magnificent for hedges.
Knaphill Scarlet — Big, showy, vermilion
flowers bloom lavishly at tulip time on this
choice, low growing plant.
Ashes of Roses — Most enchanting new
" mum" in our entire collection. Iridescent
old rose with apricot tones. Very hardy and
free flowering.
Mm PASTEL CANNAS
Six stunning new hybrids. Enormous truss­es
of radiant flowers in soft, pastel shades
of peach, old rose, yellow and gold. For
luxurious color and beauty all summer,
plant a few in front of foundation planting.
i£ « M^ Ma, HARDY ASTERS
Peace — From early September until late October, this
sturdy plant is a mass of exquisite, pinkish- lavender flow­ers
fully 2" across. Excellent for cutting.
Plenty — One of the finest fall flowers. Thousands of semi-double,
2" flowers of lovely soft blue completely cover
this superb plant. Hardy, will grow anywhere.
SEND FOR THE WORLD'S FINEST
HORTICULTURAL BOOK- CATALOG
Unquestionably, this is the finest catalog offered any­where.
Almost 200 pages filled with exciting new
introductions and worthwhile old favorites, fully
listed and illustrated in " true- to- life" colors. This
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126
mentary material from other sources, for
an intensive course for students majoring
in the field of botany. The five major
sections of the text include: introductory
remarks; structure, physiology, and re­production
; a survey of the plant king­dom
; evolution and ecology; and eco­nomic
significance of plants. Features to
be commended are: presentation of a
more modern classification of the plant
kingdom, rather than the traditional " four-division"
scheme; an excellent time scale
correlating animals, plants, and geologic
events ; and concise summaries of chapter
contents.
INTRODUCTORY BOTANY. Alexander
N'elson. 479 pages, illustrated, indexed.
Chronica Botanica Co., Waltham, Mass.
1949. $ 3.75.
Dr. Nelson of the University of Edin­burgh
has written this text as the first
of two books; in this volume biological
concepts are presented, and the projected
companion volume will include the appli­cations
of plant science to human and
animal medicine. The presentation is not
in the stereotyped order of traditional
introductory texts; in the systematic sec­tion,
for instance, the flowering plants
are first discussed, and subsequently the
" lower" plants, with the bacteria and
fungi bringing up the rear. Genetical as­pects
of botany are emphasized through­out.
Only rarely in an elementary textbook
are such items as phosphorylation, the
Traube cell, heteroploidy, crossing- over,
incompatibility, and xenia included. The
use of such terms as imbalance, manurial
salts, mycodomatia, and sink may at first
be strange to American botanists, and the
lack of the typical lavish illustration of
U. S. textbooks might be a drawback to
the general student.
However, for anyone planning a career
in any field of biology, the book is to be
recommended highly, both for the logical
scientific approach to complex ideas and
for the extremely reasonable cost.
J. J. WURDACK.
Horticulture, Agriculture, Forestry
HORTICULTURE ENTERPRISES. Re­vised.
Walter B. Balch, A. S. Colby,
and T. J. Talbert. Edited by R. W.
Gregory. 480 pages, illustrated, in­dexed.
J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadel­phia.
1949. $ 3.
This, the seventh, is a newly revised
edition of a text originally published
under the title of " Horticulture" in 1919.
The new title was adopted in 1929. The
book is a text essentially for learning
the culture of fruit and vegetable crops,
but also includes a number of ornamen­tals.
SOUTHERN HORTICULTURE MAN.
AGEMENT. E. W. Garris & H. S.
Wolfe. Edited by R. W. Gregory. 564
pages, illustrated, indexed. J. B. Lip­pincott
Co., Philadelphia. 1949. $ 3.
Culture of fruit and vegetable crops
in the states from Arkansas across to
Virginia and from Texas across the
Gulf Coast and into southern Florida is
described in this volume. Instructions are
given for truck farms and small home
gardens. At the end of each chapter
there are suggestions for study and prac­tice
and a list of practical references.
FIELD CROPS MANAGEMENT. Re­vised.
E. N. Fergus & Carsie Ham­monds.
Edited by R. W. Gregory. 600
pages, illustrated, indexed. T. B. Lip­pincott
Co., Philadelphia. 1949. $ 3.
This is part of a series of books on
agricultural management being published
by Lippincott. Tobacco, corn, small
grains, and hay are the principal crops
treated, soybeans and other legumes being
included in a long chapter on hay crops.
FORAGE CROPS. Gilbert H. Ahlgren.
418 pages, indexed. McGraw- Hill Book
Co., New York. 1949. $ 5.
The name of Gilbert H. Ahlgren of
Rutgers University is already familiar to
Journal readers. As head of the Farm
Crops Department at the New Jersey
State College of Agriculture, where ex­tensive
experimentation as well as stan­dard
practice is always under way, he
has a wide opportunity to become famil­iar
with many aspects of the culture of
farm crops. It is disappointing to find
that he has not included the recent
Rutgers experiments on the use of weed
killers on the soil before the corn is
planted in order to avoid the labor and
expense of cultivating it during the sea­son.
Perhaps this will appear in a later
volume.
SOUTHERN FORESTRY. Charles N.
Elliott & M. D. Mobley. 494 pages,
illustrations, glossary, index. Turner
E. Smith Co., Atlanta, Ga. 1949. $ 3.
Industries, occupations, recreation, and
wild life which are dependent upon the
forests of the south are given broad
consideration in this book. The purpose
127
has been to appeal to young people. The
authors have both been instructors in
summer camps where forestry was being
taught.
New Editions
THE GARDENER'S TRAVEL BOOK.
E. I. Farrington. 278 pages, illustrated.
Oxford University Press, New York.
Revised edition 1949. $ 4.
Wherever one journeys there are gar­dens,
parks and splendid trees to be
seen, and with the help of " The Gar­dener's
Travel Book" one need miss very
little. The new edition is more compact
than the one of 1938, yet more complete.
There are still slight mistakes and omis­sions
( as there are almost bound to be in
a book of this nature), such as the
reference in both editions to the " West­chester
Parkway," a non- existent entity.
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in
California has been unfortunately omit­ted
this time but other places of horti­cultural
interest have been added. Rock­land
County's Dutch garden at New
City, N. Y., remains an undiscovered
gem. But the wonder is, not that a few
errors have persisted but that so much
has been included to make the book a
worthwhile companion for the traveler.
APPLIED SILVICULTURE IN THE
UNITED STATES. R. H. Westveld.
590 pages, illustrated, indexed. John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. Sec­ond
edition 1949. $ 6.
When Stanley A. Cain reviewed the
first edition in this Journal ten years
ago he wrote that this book " will un­doubtedly
become a standard handbook
for foresters. It will be almost as useful
to ecologists and other students of forest
vegetation." The new edition retains the
form of the old — that of dividing the
United States into forest types and
treating the history, ecology, and man­agement
problems of each separately —
and brings the reader up to date in
forestry literature and practice.
COMMON BRITISH GRASSES & LEG­UMES.
J. O. Thomas and L. J. Davies.
120 pages, illustrations, glossary, in­dex.
Longmans, Green, New York.
Third edition 1949. $ 2.25.
Designed for school and farm use in
Great Britain, this book, now in its third
edition since 1938, has value in the
United ^ States, for about half of the
plants illustrated and described are well
known here.
FUNDAMENTALS OF BACTERIOLOGY.
Martin Frobisher. 936 pages, illus­trated,
indexed. W. B. Saunders Co.,
Philadelphia. Fourth edition 1949.
$ 5.50.
Only five years have passed since the
third edition of this text, which was re­viewed
in this Journal in September
1945. New features include extensive
material on microbiology, new informa­tion
on viruses and on numerous com­mon
diseases, and the inclusion of the
latest views on many topics.
BACTERIOLOGY. William Burrows.
981 pages, illustrated, indexed. W. B.
Saunders Co., Philadelphia. Fifteenth
edition 1949. $ 9.
The fifteenth edition in 41 years indi­cates
a continuous bringing up to date
of information in a field that is at
present undergoing many changes both
in point of view and in practice. Several
parts have been rewritten and a number
of electron micrographs have been added.
HUNGER SIGNS IN CROPS. 390 pages,
illustrated, indexed. National Fertil­izer
Assn., Washington, D. C. Second
revised edition 1949. $ 4.50.
The progress in the science of soil
nutrition has necessitated a revised edi­tion
of " Hunger Signs in Crops," which
was first issued in 1941. The abundance
of illustrations in color, in addition to
exceptionally clear halftones, makes this
book of value to farmers as well as
research workers in many fields con­cerned
with plant growth.
Fibers Under the Microscope
TEXTILE FIBER ATLAS. Werner von
Bergen & Walter Krauss. 50 pages,
plus 27 plates; bibliography. Textile
Book Publishers, Inc. New York. Re­vised
edition, 1949. $ 4.50.
This collection of excellent photomi­crographs
of the principal textile fibers
of natural origins, and also man- made, is
in its third printing, having had a broad
distribution as a reference book in tech­nical
laboratories, among libraries, and as
a school text book.
In addition to the photomicrographs
which depict the outer surface of fibers
and their internal structure by means
of cross and longitudinal sections, fiber
types and their characteristics are dis­cussed.
Considerable data concerned with
fineness measurement and variation in
fibers of a given type are presented in
tabular form. Factors affecting the iden­tification
of fibers, such as damage to
128
wool by physical and chemical treatments
and by bacteria and insects, are discussed.
Included is a bibliography of some 300
references.
The 1949 edition has been brought up
to date by including some of the newer
fibers such as Orion and alginate rayon.
JULIAN S. JACOBS, Editor,
Textile Research Journal.
Broad Study of Yeast
THE YEAST CELL, ITS GENETICS
AND CYTOLOGY. Carl C. Lindegren.
Illustrations, tables, bibliography. Edu­cational
Publishers, Inc., St. Louis,
Mo. 1949. $ 7.
Yeast, an ever- fertile source of experi­mental
material for students of nutrition,
enzymes and metabolism, now, in the
words of the author, ". . . has graduated
. . from a promising organjsm for
experimental breeding to a full- fledged
membership in the Drosophila- maize-
Neurospora hierarchy." To some this
may seem to be an over- statement but to
this reader it appears more like a careful
judgment spiced with optimism.
The book which Dr. Lindegren has
written is a highly personal one; virtu­ally
all of the material presented is the
result of first- hand observations in his
own laboratory. Thus it is not an histori­cal
review nor a detailed survey of the
literature but is rather like a series of
laboratory note books. The coverage is
wide, however, and anyone dealing with
yeast or interested in genetics or cytology
will profit by reading the book.
Dr. Lindegren is undoubtedly the fore­most
authority on yeast genetics and
cytology in this country and is respon­sible
for much of the progress made in
this field in recent years.
LAWRENCE ATKIN,
Fleischmann Laboratories.
recent literature on potato culture, per­iodicals,
a buyer's guide, and numerous
tables dealing with potato production.
AMERICAN TOMATO YEARBOOK.
John W. Carncross, editor. 40 pages.
American Tomato Yearbook, 289 Fourth
Avenue, New York. 1949. $ 2.
Graphs and tables illustrate the past
year's situation in the growing and can­ning
of tomatoes in the United States.
Seed production is included, and lists
of varieties grown in different parts of
the country are provided. There is a
list of references dating from 1940 and
a buyer's guide.
Food Production Text
VEGETABLE CROPS. Homer C. Thomp­son.
611 pages, illustrated, indexed.
McGraw- Hill, New York, 4th edition.
1949. $ 6.
Mr. Thompson has made an extensive
revision of his already successful book,
integrating the latest research and ex­perimental
data, with the general subject
matter remaining the same. The text may
be somewhat technical as it was written
primarily for college use. However, the
layman who has an interest in the sub­ject
will find it quite practical in its
presentation of vegetable gardening. The
new material includes statistics on per
capita consumption, new knowledge of
nutritional value of vegetables, new infor­mation
on plant nutrition, the placement
of fertilizer, weed control, and the latest
chemicals used as pesticides. Prepackag­ing
and other new methods of handling
vegetables for market are discussed in
the chapter on marketing.
This is an excellent edition, dealing with
the production and handling of vegetable
crops, and should still be considered the
most accurate and scientific textbook
available on the subject.
JOSEPH M. LENT,
University of Connecticut.
Yearbooks on Vegetables
AMERICAN POTATO YEARBOOK. John
C. Campbell, editor. 84 pages. Ameri­can
Potato Yearbook, 289 Fourth
Avenue, New York. 1949. $ 2.
The Potato Association of America
has provided a handbook containing short
articles of interest to growers and also
numerous reference lists, such as associa­tions
for the improvement of the potato
industry, agencies for seed certification,
Results of Frost
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON FROST ACTION
IN SOILS, ANNOTATED, 57 pages.
Highway Research Board, 2101 Con­stitution
Ave., Washington 25, D. C.
1948. 45f.
Nearly 300 references are given in this
annotated bibliography, which is the third
in a series issued by the Highway Re­search
Board. Several lines of comment
are given on each reference.
THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
Officers
JOSEPH R. SWAN, Chairman
CHARLES B. HARDING, President FREDERICK S. MOSELEY, JR., Vice- President
ARTHUR M. ANDERSON, Treasurer HENRY DE LA MONTAGNE, Secretary
Elective Managers
SHERMAN BALDWIN MRS. ELON HUNTINGTON ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY
WILLIAM FELTON BARRETT HOOKER
HOWARD BAYNE
EDWIN D E T. BECHTEL
HENRY F. DU PONT
REV. ROBERT I. GANNON,
S. J.
SIDNEY LANIER
MRS. ALBERT D. LASKER
CLARENCE MCK. LEWIS
THOMAS S. LEWIS
E. D. MERRILL
Ex- Officio Managers
FRANCIS E. POWELL, JR.
MRS. HAROLD I. PRATT
WILLIAM J. ROBBINS
EDMUND W. SINNOTT
CHAUNCEY STILLMAN
OAKLEIGH L. THORNE
WILLIAM O'DWYER, Mayor of the City of New York
MAXIMILIAN MOSS, President of the Board of Education
ROBERT MOSES, Park Commissioner
Appointive Managers
By the Torrey Botanical Club: RUTHERFORD PLATT. By Columbia University:
MARSTON T. BOGERT, CHARLES W. BALLARD, SAM F. TRELEASE.
THE STAFF
WILLIAM J. ROBBINS, P H . D . , SC. D.
HENRY DE LA MONTAGNE
H, A. GLEASON, P H . D .
P. P. PIRONE, P H . D .
THOMAS H. EVERETT, N. D. HORT.
H. W. RICKETT, P H . D.
HAROLD N. MOLDENKE, P H . D.
BASSETT MAGUIRE, P H . D .
DONALD PHILIP ROGERS, P H . D .
E. J. ALEXANDER, B. S.
G. L. WITTROCK, A. M.
F. W. KAVANAGH, P H . D .
IGOR NICHOLAS ASHESHOV, M. D.
ROBERT S. DE ROPP, P H . D . , D. I. C.
MARJORIE ANCHEL, P H . D .
ROSALIE WEIKERT
MARY STEBBINS, M. A.
RICHARD S. COWAN, M. S.
JOHN J. WURDACK, B. S.
ELIZABETH C. HALL, A. B., B. S.
CAROL H. WOODWARD, A. B.
FRANK C MACKEEVER, B. S.
JOSEPH MONACHINO, B. S.
OTTO DEGENER, M. S.
ELMER N. MITCHELL
BERNARD O. DODGE, P H . D .
A. B. STOUT, P H . D .
FRED J. SEAVER, P H . D . , SC. D.
INEZ M. HARINC
JOSEPH F. BURKE
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Assistant Director
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Editor of the Journal
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Associate Custodian of the Herbarium
Collaborator in Hawaiian Botany
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Curator Emeritus
Curator Emeritus
Assistant Honorary Curator of Mosses
Honorary Curator of the Diatomaceae
ETHEL ANSON S. PECKHAM Honorary Curator, Iris and Narcissus Collections
A. C. PFANDER Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds
To reach the Botanical Garden, take the Independent Subway to Bedford Park Boulevard
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN
Books, Booklets, and Special Numbers of the Journal
An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, by Nathaniel
Lord Britton and Addison Brown. Three volumes, giving descriptions and illustra­tions
of 4,666 species. Second edition, reprinted. $ 15.
Flora of the Prairies and Plains of Central North America, by P. A. Rydberg.
969 pages and 601 figures. 1932. $ 6.
Plants of the Vicinity of New York, by H. A. Gleason. 284 pages, illustrated.
A handbook especially compiled for the beginner. 1935. Second edition 1947. $ 2.
The Bahama Flora, by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Charles Frederick Millspaugh.
695 pages. Descriptions of the spermatophytes, pteridophytes, bryophytes, and
thallophytes of the Bahamas, with keys, notes on explorations and collections,
bibliography, and index. 1920. $ 6.25.
North American Cariceae, by Kenneth K. Mackenzie, containing 539 plates
of Carex and related plants by Harry C. Creutzburg, with a description of each
species. Indexed. 1940. Two volumes, 10^ 4 x 13J4 inches; bound $ 17.50. Foreign
postage extra.
Keys to the North American Species of Carex by K. K. Mackenzie. From
Vol. 19, Part 1, of North American Flora. $ 1.25.
Plants of the Holy Scriptures, by Eleanor King, with a check- list of plants
that are mentioned in the Bible, each one accompanied by a quotation. Revised from
the Journal of March 1941. 23 pages, illustrated. 1948. 25 cents.
Food and Drug Plants of the North American Indian. Two illustrated articles
by Marion A. & G. L. Wittrock in the Journal for March 1942. 15 cents.
Vegetables and Fruits for the Home Garden. Four authoritative articles reprinted
from the Journal, 21 pages, illustrated. Edited by Carol H. Woodward. 1941. 15 cents.
The Flora of the Unicorn Tapestries by E. J. Alexander and Carol H. Wood­ward.
28 pages, illustrated with photographs and drawings; bound with paper. 1941.
Second edition 1947; reprinted 1950. 25 cents.
Catalog of Hardy Trees and Shrubs. A list of the woody plants being grown
outdoors at the New York Botanical Garden in 1942, in 127 pages with notes, a
map, and 20 illustrations. 75 cents.
Succulent Plants of New and Old World Deserts by E. J. Alexander. 64 pages,
indexed. 350 species treated, 100 illustrated. Bound in paper. 1942. Second
edition 1944. 50 cents.
Review of Juniperus chinensis, et al by P. J. van Melle. A study of the many
varieties and forms of funiperus which have been commonly included in the concept
of /. chinensis. 108 pages, illustrated, bound in paper. 1947. $ 2.
Periodicals
Journal of The New York Botanical Garden, monthly, containing news, book
reviews, and non- technical articles on botany, exploration, and horticulture. $ 1.50 a
year; single copies 15 cents. Free to members of the Garden. Now in its 51st volume.
The Garden, a quarterly, designed to stimulate the laymen's interest in the world
of plants and the science of plant life through articles written in popular vein. $ 2 a
year in the United States; all other countries, $ 2.50. Published by the Garden's Man­hattan
office at 801 Madison Avenue, New York 21, N. Y. Now in its second volume.
Addisonia, devoted exclusively to colored plates accompanied by popular descrip­tions
of flowering plants; eight plates in each number, thirty- two in each volume.
Now in its twenty- second volume. Published irregularly. Subscription price, $ 10 a
volume. Not offered in exchange. Free to members of the Garden.
Mycologia, bimonthly, illustrated in color and otherwise; devoted to fungi,
including lichens, containing technical articles and news and notes of general in­terest.
$ 7 a year; single copies $ 1.50 each. Now in its forty- second volume.
Brittonia. A series of botanical papers published in co- operation with the
American Society of Plant Taxonomists. Subscription price of volumes 1 through
5, $ 5 a volume ($ 4 to members of the Society). Now in its seventh volume. Price,
$ 7.50 ($ 5 to members of the Society).
North American Flora. Descriptions of the wild plants of North America,
including Greenland, the West Indies, and Central America. 97 parts now issued.
Not offered in exchange. Prices of the separate parts on request.
Contributions from The Neiv York Botanical Garden. A series of technical
papers reprinted from journals other than the above, 1899- 1933- 25 cents each, $ 5
a volume. List of separate titles on request.
Memoirs of The New York Botanical Garden. A collection of scientific
papers, 1900- 1927. Contents and prices on request.