TORREYA
A MonTHLY JOURNAL OF BoTANICAL Nores anp News
JOHN TORRBY, 1706-1873
EDITED FOR THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
BY
NORMAN TAYLOR LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
Volume XI
NEW YORK
IQtI
uN eR > >
Soe
taper
Page Page Page Page nopsis. Page Page Page
ERRATA, VOLUME XI
9, 13th line from the bottom, read carolinensis for caroliniana.
10, 5th line from the bottom, capitalize C in Cannon.
12, 6th line from the bottom, read Byrsonima for Brysonema. 95, 11th line from the bottom, read Crotonopsis for Chroto-
95, 10th line from the bottom, after Panicum read § for |j. 95, 12th line from the bottom after Aster read || for §. 96, the first five names in the list should precede the four in
the second column on page 95. 99, 4th line from the top, read 7s for are.
Page Page Page Page Page
190, 191, 194, 196,
Penausken.
Page Page Page Page
203, 236, 242, 248,
last line, read vegetation for vegegation.
15th line from the top, read Haberer for Harberer.
7th line from the bottom, read east for west.
17th and 21st lines from the top, read Pensauken for
15th line from the bottom, read flowers for plants.
3d line from the bottom, read Dukinfield for Deunkinfield. 14th line from the bottom, read Anthurus for Arcturus. 13th line from the bottom, read R. A. Harper for
R. H. Harper.
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DATES OF PUBLICATION
No. 1, for January Pages I-22 Issued January 31, I9II No. 2, February 22500 nr February 14, I911 No. 3 March 51-76 March Pei, UG) No. 4 April 77-100 April 19, IQII No. 5, May IOI-124 May 127 LO No. 6, June 125-144 June I9, IQII INI@s FH July T45-164 July TQ, IQIT No. 8, August 165-180 August I4, I9LI No. 9, September T8I—204 September 12, 1911 No. 10, October 205-224 October 18, 1911 IN@s eit, November 225-248 November 10, 1911 No. 12, December 249-276 December 20, I9QII
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Vol. 11 | January, IgiI No. 1
TORREYA
A Monruiy Journat or Boranicat Notes anp News EDITED FOR
THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
BY
NORMAN TAYLOR
JOHN TORREY, 1796-1873
CONTENTS
The Funkias or Day-Lilies: Gzorcr V. NASH....... Beertash Sean ety wok cao SNe I
Additions to the Flora of the Carolinas. II.: W. C. COKER ....c..cccceeceeeeceseeeee “9
Additions to the Tree Flora of the United States. JoHN K- SMALL............. hogy EE
_ Tragopogon pratensis porrifolius. EARL Ej SHERFF.........,...:0s00.seseeseeeeeeee 14
poe Notes : A New Gerardia from New Jersey: FRancis W. PENNELL.....:..... 15
Notes on Some Californian Green Algae: Douctas H. CAMPBELL 17
(PEE. Hough’s Leaf Key to the Trees: RALPH ©, BENEDICT..............s.0002.00 17 Stevens’ Diseases of Economic Plants: FRED J. SEAVER......,...:....... 1Q.~
4 Proceedings of: the Club, ....0...25.ceslnejeccaneess AES Hoes owls dpe aia Sate betes cokes oases Shaw. 21
News Items,.:...........s000000006 Net oi hous plswd vs fy LSE Oman RNa NTC a noe aoe Ding 22
PUBLISHED FOR THE CLUB
At 41 Nortu Queen Srreet, LANCASTER, Pa. ‘py Tue Naw Era Printinc Company
’
[Entered at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pa., as second-class matter. |
THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB”
OFFICERS FOR to1t
President HENRY H, RUSBY, M.D:
Vice- Presidents EDWARD S. BURGESS, PH.D. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A.M., M:D.
Secretary and Treasurer
BERNARD O. DODGE, Ph.B. Columbia University, New York City
Editor PHILIP DOWELL, Pu.D.
Associate. Editors
JOHN H. BARNHART, A.M., M.D. TRACY ELLIOT HAZEN, Pu.D.
JEAN BROADHURST, A.M. MARSHALL AVERY HOWE, Pu.D, ERNEST D. CLARK, Pu. D. HERBERT M. RICHARDS, S.D. ALEX. W. EVANS, M.D., PH.D: NORMAN TAYLOR picid
ToORREYA is furnished to subscribers in the United States and Canada for one dollar per annum; single copies, fifteen cents. To subscribers elsewhere, five shillings, or the equivalent thereof. Postal or express money orders and drafts or personal checks on New York City banks are accepted in payment, but the rules of the New York Clearing House compel the request that ten cents be added to the amount of any other local checks that may be sent. Subscriptions are received only for full volumes, beginning with the January issue. Reprints will be furnished at cost prices. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to TREASURER, TORREY BOTANICAL Cuius, 41 North Queen St., Lan- caster, Pa., or Columbia University, New York City.
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reBg= 11}
TORREYA
January, IgII Wool, 11 No. I
THE HUNIKIAS ‘OR, DAY-LILIES
By GEORGE V. NASH
Many years ago, past the middle of the eighteenth century, that indefatigable explorer and botanist, Thunberg, visited Japan. During his travels in that then almost unknown country, he found a perennial plant which was of frequent occurrence, both wild and under cultivation. In those days of broadly drawn generic lines, Thunberg without hesitation referred his plant to the Linnaean genus Aletris, under the specific name of japonica. Some years later, in 1784, he transferred this to the genus Hemerocallis, perhaps a nearer approach to its true relation- ship as understood today; but it was not until 1807 that the first intimation was made that the group to which this plant belonged might be the basis of a new genus, and the name of Saussurea was very indefinitely proposed for it by Salisbury. The form in which this proposition was made could not possibly be con- sidered as publication under the rules of nomenclature of the present day. In any event, it is not available, as the name Saussuria had been previously employed by Moench for an entirely different group of plants. In 1812 Trattinick proposed the name of Hosta, ignoring the fact that Jacquin fifteen years earlier had used it for a genus of the Verbenaceae. These earlier names being disposed of the way is clear for the adop- tion of the Niobe of Salisbury, published in the same year as Hosta, and about which the question of priority might have been raised, had not Trattinick’s name proved a homonym. Salisbury ade- quately published his name, it being based on Hemerocallis japonica Ker. In spite of this, however, the name of Funkia, under which these plants are generally known and which was not published by Sprengel until 1817, is adopted in the Index Kew- ensis. This arbitrary usage is perhaps responsible for the wide
[No. 12, Vol. 10, of ToRREYA, comprising pp. 261-292, was issued 23 D rg10.]
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acceptance of this name and the continuation of the error. That this name must be abandoned and that of Niobe reinstated, is well supported by the above facts.
The genus divides itself into two rather well-marked groups which were considered genera by Salisbury, under the names of Niobe and Bryocles. The former was applied to the plant known here as Niobe plantaginea, in which the flowers are white and have the filaments adnate to the tube for part of their length, while the name of Bryocles was given to what is here called Niobe coerulea, a group including at the present time several other species, in which the flowers are smaller, colored, and have the filaments free. It is said that in Niobe plantaginea there is present a small bracteole at the base of the pedicel, but I find this frequently wanting, so attach little value to it as a generic character. In view of the above, I find it better to adopt the generally accepted view of the present day, and consider the two groups as parts of one genus.
The genus may be briefly characterized as follows:
Niobe Salisbury, Trans. Hort. Soc. 1: 335. 1812
Bryocles Salisbury, 1. c.
Hosta Tratt. Arch. Gew. 1: 55. 1812. Not Jacq. 1797. Funkia Spreng. Anl. Ed. 2, 2'!: 246. 1817.
Libertia Dum. Comm. 9. 1822.
Tufted perennial herbs, forming “arge masses, with petioled basal leaves, and,a racemose inflorescence borne on a naked or leafy stem. Perianth varying from white to deep lavender, tubular-trumpet-form, funnel-form, or campanulate-funnel-form: segments six, shorter or longer than the tube. Stamens six, de- clinate, from equalling to a little shorter than the perianth, the filaments filiform and free or nearly so, or adnate to the tube for a considerable part of their length: anthers oblong, versatile, in- trorse. Ovary sessile, oblong, 3-celled. Style filiform, a little thickened at the stigma. Ovulesnumerous. Capsule narrowly oblong or almost linear, loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds compressed, angled, or almost flat.
Species seven or eight, perhaps more, natives of Japan, China, and eastern Siberia.
The following key will help identify the six species in culti- vation:
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Perianth white, 8-10 cm. long, tubular-trumpet-form; stamens adnate to the tube for a considerable portion of their length. 1. N. plantaginea. Perianth colored, 3-6 cm. long, stamens free. Perianth funnel-form, the tube gradually passing into the limb, from white flushed with lavender to pale lavender.
Flowering stem with leaves or with leaf-like bracts, these gradually
passing into the bracts of the inflorescence; leaf-blades green. Leaf-blades lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, usually equally narrowed at both ends, the nerves on each side of the midrib 3-5; perianth
usually less than 5 cm. long. 2. N. japonica. Leaf-blades broadly ovate, the nerves on each side of the midrib 6-10; perianth usually 5 cm. long or more. 3. N. undulata.
Flowering stem naked, or sometimes with a single bract at the middle; leaf-blades glaucous. Scape not or but little exceeding the leaves; petioles usually much
exceeding the blades. 4. N. Sieboldiana.
Scape much exceeding the leaves; petioles usually not exceeding the blades. 5. N. Fortunet.
Perianth campanulate-funnel-form, the tube abruptly passing into the limb, blue. 6. N. coerulea.
/ 1. Niobe plantaginea (Lam.). White Day-lily. Plantain Lily
Hemerocallis plantaginea Lam. Niobe cordifolia Salisb. Funkia subcordata Spreng. Funkia alba Sweet. Funkia grandiflora Sieb. & Zucc.
A showy perennial, with large plantain-like leaves, and racemes of white odorous flowers. Leaves numerous, pale green; blades 15-23 cm. long, 8-13 cm. wide, broadly ovate, cordate at the base, acute at the apex, with 6-8 curved nerves on each side of the midrib; petiole usually exceeding the blade in length: scape 4-6 dm. tall, with 1 or 2 lanceolate bracts near the middle: inflorescence racemose, I-2 dm. long: flowers up to about 12, each in the axil of an ovate bract 3-4 cm. long, on pedicels I-2 cm. long: perianth about 1 dm. long, white, its lobes ovate or lanceolate, 3-4 cm. long, but little spreading; stamens shorter than the perianth: capsule about 2 cm. long.
A native of Japan and China. Lamarck, who described this plant under the name of Hemerocallis plantaginea in 1789, thought that it had been growing for a few years in the garden of the king, to which it had been sent by M. de Guines from China. This is the first reference found to its cultivation outside of its native country, so its introduction to gardens may be taken as occurring somewhere near that date. It is known in Japan as
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“tamano kandsaki.’”’ The variety grandiflora (Funkia grand1- flora Sieb. & Zucc.) appears to differ only in the somewhat larger flowers, and in having the bracts of the raceme larger and more leaf-like.
From an inspection of the list of synonymy cited above, it will be seen that this plant has had many names. It has fre- quently been considered the Hemerocallis japonica of Thunberg’s Flora Japonica, on account of the flowers of that plant being
- described as white. Thunberg, however, states that in his plant the filaments are attached to the base of the corolla at the edge of the ovary, a condition not existing in the plant here under consideration, in which these parts are adnate to the peri- anth tube for a considerable portion of its length. Thunberg may have had a pale-flowered form of the plant considered in this paper as NV. japonica. The name under which this plant is commonly known in gardens in this country and in those of Europe is Funkia subcordata, a name descriptive of the shape of the leaves, but not more so than is that of plantaginea, here adopted, which refers to the resemblance of these leaves to those of the common plantain of Europe, Plantago major, a resemblance striking indeed.
2. Niobe japonica (Thunb.). Japanese or Lance-leaved Day-lily
Aletris japonica Thunb. Funkia lanctfolia Spreng.
A showy perennial forming large dense masses, with elliptic to nearly ovate leaf-blades which are narrowed at the base, and racemes of lavender flowers. Leaves numerous, green: blades 10-15 cm. long, sometimes up to 6 cm. wide, lanceolate or elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, usually equally narrowed at both ends, rarely more broadly so at the base, with 3-5, rarely more, curved nerves on each side of the midrib: scape 4—6 dm. tall, overtopping the leaves, the scattered and distant leaves gradually passing into the bracts of the inflorescence: inflorescence racemose: flowers sometimes up to 20, finally nodding, on pedicels 4-6 mm. long: perianth pale lavender, 3—5 cm. long, the slender tube, less than one half the length of the perianth, narrowed into a broad limb, the segments 1.5—2 cm. long and 8-10 mm. wide, acute: capsule 2.5-3 cm. long, pendulous and appressed to the scape.
A native of Japan. There is a variegated form in cultivation
Or
known as variety albo-marginata (Funkia albomarginata Hook.), which has the leaves marginedjwith a narrow band of white. There is another form which is quite distinct, the variety tardi- flora, in which the pedicels are longer, the lower ones 10-12 mm. long. It also flowers a little later, so that while the one is in ripe fruit, this variety is still in flower. It is also more resistant to frost.
The synonymy of this plant has perhaps been more tangled than in any other member of the genus, and it was in part the fault of Thunberg himself. In his Flora Japonica, published in 1784, he described a Hemerocallis japonica. Previous to this, in 1780, he had published an Aletris japonica, but in the Flora Japonica he made no reference to this. As in the later publica- tion he quotes verbatim in part the description given of his Aletris, it is quite easy to connect the two. Subsequent to the publica- tion of Hemerocallis japonica Thunb., Kaempfer’s Icones Selectae Plantarum appeared, published in 1791, and at plate 11 of this work appeared another H. japonica, an entirely different plant from that of Thunberg. In 1794 Thunberg renames his plant, calling it Hemerocallis lancifolia, and maintains Kaempfer’s name for a plant, which, years afterward, was called Funkia Sieboldiana by Hooker. It is difficult to understand why Thunberg did this, unless it be that he associated this plate with the description of a plant published by the same author in 1712, but without a binomial. In the Botanical Magazine, under plate 1433, this same association is made. The flowers are there said to be 3 inches long, which hardly agrees with the plate cited in which the flowers are shown to be about 2 inches long—about the size they are in the plant named Funkia Sieboldiana by Hooker. This is of course interesting only as a matter of history, for the oldest specific name of this plant published with a description is japonica, and this must be adopted.
3. Niobe undulata (Otto & Dietr.). Wavy-margined Day-lily
Funkia undulata Otto & Dietr.
A tall showy plant, with long-petioled broad leaves, and numerous pale lavender flowers in a long raceme. Stems up
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to 1.5 m. tall, bearing 3-5 long-petioled leaves which gradu- ally decrease in size, passing into the bracts of the in- florescence; basal leaves numerous; petioles often more than twice as long as the blades, deeply concave, thin-margined, up to 4.5 dm. long; blades usually 1.5—2 dm. long, up to 13 cm. wide, undulate on the margins, broadly ovate, acute at the apex, abruptly narrowed into the margined petiole, with 6-10 nerves on each side, the nerves depressed above, very prominent beneath, the upper surface dull, the lower shining: raceme up to 5 dm. long: flowers numerous, nodding, on recurved pedicels less than I cm. long; perianth 4.5-5.5 cm. long, funnel-form, pale lav- ender, the narrowly ovate acute segments about one half as long as the tube, the stamens and style recurved at the apex, the former exserted.
A native of Japan. There is a plant, much lower than this, with smaller more strongly undulate leaf-blades, which are marked with large masses of white in the center, and a fewer- flowered raceme. I venture to consider this a variegated form of the above plant, under the name Niobe undulata variegata. It is perhaps the most commonly cultivated of all the day lilies, and is frequently used as an edging for paths. Its flowers are identical with those of the above in color, form and size, and they appear at about the same time. The stem is also leafy as in that plant. This is sometimes considered a form of Niobe japonica, but that flowers considerably later, and has dif- ferently shaped leaves with fewer nerves—characters which would seem to exclude this variegated form.
4. Niobe Sieboldiana (Lodd.). Siebold’s Day-lily
Funkia Sieboldiana Hook. Funkia Sieboldii Lindl. Funkia sinensis Sieb.
A showy pereninal forming large masses, with large cordate glaucous leaves, and racemes of pale lilac flowers which protrude little if any above the leaves. Leaves numerous: petioles 2-3 dm. long; blades 2-3 dm. long and 15-20 cm. wide, broadly ovate, cor- date at the base, acute at the apex, glaucous on both surfaces, with 12 or 13 curved nerves on each side of the midrib: scape, including the raceme, 3-4 dm. tall, barely equalling or little exceeding the leaves, the lower bracts 4-8 cm. long, finally spreading: inflorescence racemose; flowers 10-15, on pedicels 10-12 mm. long,
finally nodding: perianth pale lilac or white flushed with the same color, 5-6 cm. long, the segments about 1.5 cm. long and 6-8 mm. wide: capsule 3-3.5 cm. long.
Native of Japan. Introduced into cultivation at the Botanical Garden at Leyden, Holland, in 1830.
5. Niobe Fortunei (Baker). Fortune’s Day-lily
Funkia Fortune Baker.
A showy perennial, forming masses, with pale green glaucous leaves, which are much overtopped by the racemes of pale purple flowers. Leaves numerous: petioles 5-8 cm. long, shorter than the blades; blades 10-13 cm. long and 7—9 cm. wide, pale green, glaucous, cordate at the base, cuspidate at the apex, with 10-12 nerves on each side of the midrib: scape, including the raceme, 4-5 dm. long, much overtopping the leaves: raceme I-1.5 dm. long, the bracts lanceolate, the lower ones about 2.5 cm. long: flowers on pedicels 6-8 mm. long: perianth pale purple, about 4 cm. long, the segments lanceolate and about one half as long as the tube.
Native of Japan. Introduced into cultivation in 1876. This
and N. Sieboldiana are frequently confused.
6. Niobe coerulea (Andr.). Blue Day-lily Hemerocallis coerulea Andr. Funkia ovata Spreng. Funkia coeru- lea Sweet.
A showy perennial forming large masses, with large cordate or ovate leaves, and racemes of blue flowers. Leaves numerous, green; blades 10-25 cm. long, 8-13 cm. wide, broadly ovate or sometimes cordate at the base, acute at the apex, the margin often wavy, with 6-9 curved nerves on each side of the midrib; petiole up to 30 cm. long: scape 3-6 dm. tall: inflorescence race- mose, extending much above the leaves, the bracts 2 cm. long or less: flowers up to 12, on pedicels 5-10 mm. long, finally nodding: perianth pale or deep blue, 4—5 cm. long, the tube, less than one half the length of the perianth, abruptly spreading into a broad ample limb, the segments of which are about 2 cm. long and 8-10 mm. wide, acute: capsule pendulous, 24-36 mm. long.
Native of Japan, northern China, and eastern Siberia. It was first introduced some time prior to 1797 into England from Japan by Mr. G. Hibbert, of Clapham, in whose garden it flowered. It was first cultivated as a hothouse plant, but was later found
to be hardy.
This, as was the case with Niobe plantaginea, was first pub- lished as a Hemerocallis in 1797. By some this is considered to be the original Hemerocallis japonica of Thunberg’s Flora Japonica; but in that the leaves are said to have seven nerves, making this position hardly tenable, as the leaves in this have from 13-19. This is usually known under the name of Funkia ovata Spreng. There are forms of this also with variegated leaves. The variety albo-marginata has the leaves margined with white.
A word now as to the uses of these plants in horticulture, to which they lend themselves readily and effectively. By selecting the species, flowers may be had continuously from June to the time of frost. The first to flower are Niobe Sieboldiana and N. Fortunei, closely related species, which are at their prime in June, with white flowers flushed with lavender. As these are waning the deeper lavender flowers of Niobe undulata and its variegated variety make their appearance, late in June or early in July, accompanied at almost the same time by the blue bell- shaped flowers of Niobe coerulea. Next to appear are the flowers of Niobe japonica, and its later-flowering form, the variety tardt- flora, which carry the flowering period of this interesting genus up to the time of killing frosts. Accompanying these last, and perhaps the most stately of them all, is Niobe plantaginea, some- times known as the plantain lily, from the resemblance of its leaves to those of that plant. This is quite in contrast with the other species, the flowers being much larger, of a different shape, and a pure white, with no trace of coloring. They appear usually early in September, and continue through the month.
Some of the day lilies are desirable foliage plants, in addition to the interest of their flowers. For those who like the rich variegated effect of white and green, perhaps no other plant is more effective than is Niobe undulata variegata, planted as an edging to paths or beds. Where a mass of deep green foliage is desired, Niobe undulata and N. coerulea are desirable; or if a gray green is wished, Niobe Sieboldiana or its close relative N. Fortunei should not be forgotten. The plants spread rapidly, and delight in a deep rich soil, free from soggy conditions, and are impartial to the bright sun or part shade. Masses of them
planted in the corner of a garden or in recesses in a herbaceous border are very effective. They may be readily propagated by division of the old plants, the new ones soon developing into masses rivaling those from which they were taken. They may also be readily grown from seed, which some of them produce freely. It is desirable, however, that the seed be sown soon after collecting, as it does not keep well.
All of the species in cultivation are perfectly hardy in the latitude of New York, requiring no protection whatever, making them especially desirable for a herbaceous border, where per- manency is a great desideratum.
New York BOTANICAL GARDEN.
AO PUIONS LO THE FLORA OF THE CAROLINAS—ll
By W. C. COKER Kalmia cuneata Michx.
This species occurs plentifully on the edge of an open savanna on the south side of Prestwood’s Lake, Hartsville, S. C. It appears in scattered slumps along the transition line between the savanna and a typical dense “‘bay’’ formation. The soil it stands in is a nearly saturated black humus, and is covered in many places with Sphagnum. Associated with the Kalmia are Zenobia pulverulenta, Vaccinium australe, Azalea viscosa, Ilex glabra, Ilex coriacea, Aronia arbutifolia, Myrica cerifera, Myrica caroliniana, Xolisma foliostflora, Fothergilla carolina, Pieris nitida, etc.
It has been taken previously only from southeastern N. C. The New York Botanical Garden and the Gray Herbarium have it only from Bladen Co., N.C. The Biltmore Herbarium has it also from Cumberland Co. (Hope Mills), and Moore Co. (Aberdeen), N. C.
Pyxidanthera barbulata Michx.
Forms dense and extensive mats at several places in the sand hills north of Hartsville, S. C., e. g., on the Camden road about four miles from town. It grows in very sandy soil associa- ted with such plants as arbutus (Epigaea repens) and wire grass (Panicum neuranthum). It was known heretofore only from
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New Jersey and from southeastern North Carolina. This is one of the most beautiful and interesting of sandy plants.
Mayaca fluviatilis Aubl. ;
Plentiful in Prestwood’s Lake, Hartsville,S. C. Its range has heretofore been given as the Gulf States and Tropical America. The plant grows in delicate, loosely woven masses, quite sub- merged and, in company with Myriophyllum heterophyllum, Utric- ularia fibrosa, Utricularia biflora, Potamogeton diversifolius, and P. heterophyllus.
Helianthemum canadense (L.) Michx.
This is found on sand hills near Kilgore’s branch, Hartsville, S. C. April 14, 1910. Typically northern in its range, this plant has not been reported before below North Carolina. It was collected at Florence, S. C., by L. F. Ward (Herb. N. Y. Bot. Garden), and the Biltmore herbarium has it from Florence, S. C., and from near Augusta, Ga.
Pentstemon australis Small.
Dry. poor soil. Chapel Hill, N. C., May 14, 1910. Low, sandy flats, Hartsville, S. C., May 6, 1910. Heretofore pub- lished only from the Gulf States and westward, but the Biltmore herbarium has it from Dade City, Fla., Augusta, Ga., and south- eastern North Carolina.
Baptisia villosa (Wait.) Ell.
Collected on sand hills across lake, Hartsville, S.C. May 22, 1910, and on sand hills near Kilgore’s branch, Hartsville, S. C., April 14, 1910. Heretofore published only from Virginia and North Carolina of the seaboard states and extending westward to Arkansas; but Dr. John K. Small has collected it in Walton Con Mlonida:
Rubus betulifolius Small.
Occurs on south side of Prestwood’s Lake on the cannon place, April 23, 1910, in flower. Heretofore listed only from Georgia and Alabama, but in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden there is a sheet by Gibbs from Cooper River, S. C., that is referred to this species. .
Rubus Enslenu Tratt.
In good soil in woods, Laurel Land, Hartsville, S. C. April 24, 1910. This is the one-flowered plant considered by some a form of R. procumbens, and I can find no record of its occurrence in South Carolina. The typical R. procumbens is found in Chapel Hill, N. C., where it forms dense mats in wet places.
Carex texensis (Torr.) Bailey.
It covers the ground under trees, in the yard of Dr. A. A. Kluttz, Chapel Hill, N. C. So far it has not been published from either of the Carolinas, but Homer D. House has collected it at Clemson College, S. C. It is now known from Southern Illinois to the Carolinas, Georgia, and westward.
This plant makes a good substitute for grass on lawns that are damp and densely shaded.
Oenothera Drummondu Hook.
This beautiful evening primrose was collected in very sandy soil along the trolley way on Sullivan’s Island, S. C., Aug. 28, 1909. It has been collected from this island before (Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden) and from Ormond, Florida (Gray Herbarium) but I cannot find that it has been reported from South Carolina or Florida, or indeed collected from any other of the Southern States east of Texas.
CHAPEL HILL, NorRTH CAROLINA.
ANDIDININIOINS INO) INeN8, INNIS, LOR Ol INsls, UNDE De Si ATES
By JOHN K. SMALL
In several previously published papers* I recorded a number of trees new to silva of the United States. They were brought to light through exploration in southern Florida, and are as follows: Serenoa serrulata, Quercus Rolfsii, Chrysobalanus pello- carpus, Alvaradoa amorphoides, Suriana maritima, Cicca disticha, Mangifera indica, Rhus leucantha, Ilex Krugiana, Hibiscus Rosa-
*Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 3: 419-440: Torreya 7: 123-125; Bull. Torrey Club 37% 513-518.
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sinensis, Tetrazygia bicolor, Sapota Achras, Solanum verbasci- folium, and Genipa clusiifolia. The following additions were discovered during more recent exploration in southern Florida.
ANONA PALUSTRIS L.
The ALLIGATOR APPLE grows abundantly in open moist ham- mocks on Long Key (Everglades) and in similar situations west of Camp Jackson (Small & Wilson no. 1648). The plants are easily distinguished from those of Anona glabra, which is common in southern Florida, by the flowers; these are usually only about one half the size of those of Anona glabra and have more pointed sepals and petals. The outer petals, too, are much longer than the inner ones.
ANONA SQUAMOSA L.
The preceding species, Anona palustris, like Anona glabra, is native in Florida. On the contrary, the SUGAR APPLE, Anona squamosa, is most likely an introduced species. While collecting on Lower Metacumbe Key, Florida, in August, 1907, I found specimens of this species thoroughly naturalized in hammocks on different parts of the island. Exploration on other keys long under cultivation would probably yield further stations for this species.
CAPPARIS CYNOPHALLOPHORA L.
The BAy-LEAVED CAPER TREE although common in southern peninsular Florida and on the keys seems to be but rarely en- countered asa tree. The writer had the good fortune to find it in January, 1909, growing as a tree on both Soldier Key and Key Largo. In both localities it reached a height of about twenty-five feet. Mr. Blodgett found it many years ago on Key West grow- ing to a height of twenty feet.
BRYSONIMA LUCIDA (Sw.) DC.
The Locust-BERRY, although known to reach the proportions of a tree in the West Indies, in Florida has heretofore been known only as a shrub, and usually a rather small shrub. How- ever, it was found on several of the small keys at the southwestern extremity of the Everglade Keys growing as a tree in January,
1909, by Mr. Carter and the writer. The maximum height it attained was about twenty-five feet.
COLUBRINA COLUBRINA (L.) Millsp.
The several collections of the WILD COFFEE, made both on the keys and the mainland of Florida appear not to have revealed it in any form but a shrub. Mr. Blodgett records it as a shrub on Key West reaching a height of twelve feet. During more recent exploration in the Everglades Mr. Carter and the writer found it on the main island of the Long Key group as a small shrub. During the fall of 1904 the writer found it very common in hammocks about the middle of the homestead country, some fifteen miles southwest of Cutler. Trees thirty to forty feet tall and six to eight inches in diameter were not uncommon.
PARITIUM TILIACEUM (L.) Juss.
The Manog, an old world plant established on the Florida Keys for many years, did not reach the proportions of a tree or become established on the mainland, except perhaps in cultiva- tion, until the present century. In 1905 Mr. S. H. Richmond sent me specimens from trees growing in the shore-hammock near Cutler. These trees evidently sprung from seeds brought there by some natural means from the keys. Although this is the only record we have of the tree occurring on the mainland, it is to be expected along the shore of the bay at any point between Cutler and Cape Sable. While in Miami in the summer of 1907 Mr. Richmond gave me additional specimens from the same station.
LucuMa NERVOSA A. DC.
The Ecc Fruit has evidently been a naturalized member of our flora for a number of years. This fact was brought to light after the severe hurricane which swept over southern peninsular Florida and the upper keys during the fall of 1906. The wind and flood during this storm swept the forests of Elliott’s Key clean of the under brush and thus allowed easy access to portions of the hammocks which were hitherto almost inaccessible. At different points in the forest we found fine trees which had evi-
14
dently become established there many years ago, while young trees were springing up from seed produced by the older trees.
HAMELIA PATENS Jacq.
The HaMmeELIA grows in hammocks in the southern two thirds of peninsular Florida and in the hammocks of the Florida Keys, but it seems never to have been observed except as a shrub. However, the writer has found specimens on the Everglade Keys growing in the dense hammocks between Cocoanut Grove and Cutler, reaching a height of 20 feet and with a trunk diameter of fully 6 inches.
New YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
TRAGOPOGON PRATENSIS xX PORRIFOLIUS
By EarL E. SHERFF
So far as the writer can find, the presence in the United States of hybrids between our two well-known species of salsify, Trago- pogon pratensis L. and T. porrifolius L., has not heretofore been observed with certainty. Britton and Brown* state that “an apparent hybrid between . . . [these two species] . . . has been noticed at New Brunswick, N. J.’’ But more recently, Brittont omits mention of this ‘‘apparent”’ hybrid and, similarly, Gray’s New Manualt fails to record it.
That there exists, however, within the two species in question a potentiality for hybridization, was demonstrated by Linnaeus§ as early as 1759. By removing the pollen of 7. pratensis and placing upon the stigmas some pollen from T. porrifolius he secured hybrids with an intermediate color scheme in the flowers. Instead of the yellow peculiar to T. pratensis or the purple peculiar to T. porrifolius, the heads of the hybrid exhibited both red and yellow. These colors were somewhat approximated later in spontaneous hybrids observed by J. Lange|| in the Danish
*Illustrated Flora, p. 269. 1898. New York.
+Man. of Flora of Northeastern States and Canada. 1905. New York. tGray’s New Manual. 1908. New York.
§Amoenitates academicae, X., p. 126. 1790. Erlangen.
|\See Focke, Pflanzen Mischlinge, p. 222. 1881. Berlin.
15
islands of Fiinen and Laaland. The outer flowers were ‘‘brown- violet, the inner yellow.’
During the month of June, 1910, it was the writer’s privilege to make frequent observations upon both 7. porrifolius and T. pratensis along the right-of-way of the C. M. & St. P. R. R. at Elgin, Ill. For a distance of several hundred feet the two species were abundant, the former occurring in the northern half of the tract and the latter in the southern half. Where the two kinds met, there were found not only plants of each species but also some thirty or more plants quite distinct. In size, the last plants more nearly resembled 7. porrifolius, which in that vicinity was considerably the more robust plant. The flowers possessed, to a remarkable extent, the color pattern ob- served by Lange in the hybrids of Fiinen and Laaland; the outer flowers of each head being a reddish ‘“‘brown-violet’”’ and the inner a yellow color. The involucral bracts were mostly equal in length to the ray flowers. A remarkable uniformity prevailed in the flower-colorations, size of the mature plants, and proportionate length of the bracts. Individual plants were examined from time to time and in no case were they found to bear pure yellow or pure purple heads. However ramose the plant, its several branches produced heads with uniformly the outer flowers reddish brown-violet and the inner flowers yellow.
It thus becomes obvious that these plants were nothing more or less than hybrids between the two species that abounded in either direction. It is the more obvious because they were found growing only in a small restricted area of about three square rods where the two pure stocks met.
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS.
SHORTER NOTES
A NEw GERARDIA FROM NEw JERSEY.—Gerardia racemulosa. —Stem slender, 3-6 dm. tall, striate-angled, smooth, branched. Branches slender, elongated, ascending. Leaves narrowly linear to filiform, sparingly scabrous above, those of the stem 1.5-2.5 cm. long, 0.5-1.5 mm. broad, usually curling on drying, with con- spicuous c usters in the axils. Inflorescences strong’y racemose.
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Pedicels 3 mm. long. Calyx-tube campanulate, 3 mm. high, its lobes triangular-subulate to subulate, 0.8—2.0 mm. long. Corolla rose-purple, about 20 mm. long, its lobes spreading, pubescent at base of upper lobes, purplish-spotted below within throat. Capsule ellipsoid-globose, 4—4.5 mm. in diameter.
Type—Parkdale, Camden Co., N. J., F. W. Pennell 2692 Coll. Sept. 27, 1910, in Herb. Acad. Nat. Sci. of Phila.
Moist sphagnous depressions, Pine Barrens of New Jersey; apparently also of North Carolina.
Specimens seen:
NEw JERSEY—Hornerstown, Monmouth Co., J. H. Grove 318; Pasadena, Ocean Co., B. Long; Forked River, Ocean Co., B Long; Egg Harbor, Atlantic Co., J. B. Brinton, A. MacElwee, CG: Mobr C. i. Pollard, H. H. (Rusby; Parkdale; Camdensi@oy F. W. Pennell 2692, 2604.
NortH CAROLINA—Wilmington, G. McCarthy 47.
This plant must be considered as an offshoot of Gerardia purpurea L. (abundant through most of the Atlantic Coastal Plain), adapted to, and largely replacing that species in the peculiar environment of the Pine Barren region of New Jersey. The two forms seem quite distinct, and for their better under- standing a diagnostic comparison is given. The characterization of G. purpurea L. represents the normal form of the plant as occurring about Washington, D. C., on the lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, in Delaware, and in New Jersey.
Stem rather stout, 4-9 dm. tall, usually sparingly scabrellous; branches stiff, spreading; leaves linear or broadly linear, those of the stem 3-5 cm. long, I.5-3.5 mm. broad, not curling on drying; inflorescences not strongly racemose; calyx-lobes tri- angular-lanceolate to triangular-subulate; corolla mostly 25-30 mm. long; capsule globose, mostly 6-7 mm. in diameter.
G. purpurea L.
Stem slender, 3-6 dm. tall, smooth; branches slender, elon- gated, ascending; leaves narrowly linear to fili orm, those of the stem I.5-2.5 cm. long, 0.5-1.5 mm. broad, usually curling on drying; inflorescences strongly racemose; calyx-lobes triangular- subulate to subulate; corolla about 20 mm. long; capsule ellip-
soid-globose, 4—4.5 mm.in diameter............. G. racemulosa.
FRANCIS W. PENNELL« UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
iy
NOTES ON SOME CALIFORNIAN GREEN ALGAE.—An examina- tion of Collins’ recent work on the green algae (F. S. Collins, “The Green Algae of North America,’’ Tufts College Studies 2:79-480. pl. 1-18. 1909) showed that two very characteristic species which have been collected in central California were not recorded for this state.
The first species is a Spondylomorum, probably S. quaternarium Ehrenb., the only recognized species of the genus, of which there seems to be no previous record for America. According to Wille (Volvocaceae, Engler & Prantl, Die Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien, 17:40. 1890), this species occurs only in Europe and Asia.
In 1896, Dr. W. R. Shaw, then instructor at Stanford Uni- versity, collected at Pacific Grove, near Monterey, a quantity of this species. He made a number of slides, three of which are now in the collection of the University. The specimens agree in all respects with the figures and descriptions of S. guaternarium, but are somewhat smaller than the dimensions given by De-Toni in his Sylloge Algarum, where the size is stated to be 36-75u. The largest Californian specimens hardly exceed 40u in length. No further collections of Spondylomorum have come to my attention.
The second alga to be noted is Pithophora oedogonia (Mont.) Wittrock. This species has been collected several times in Felt Lake, a small body of water some four miles from Stanford Univer- sity. The identification was made by Professor W. A. Setchell.
The species of Pithophora are for the most part tropical, but several species have been reported from stations in the eastern and central parts of the United States. So far as I know, the genus has not before been recorded from the Pacific Coast. _
DoucLas H. CAMPBELL. STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA.
REVIEWS Hough’s Leaf Key to the Trees A little book of interest to teachers that has appeared recently is Mr. R. B. Hough’s Leaf Key to the Trees.*
*R. B. Hough. Leaf Key to the Trees of the United States and Canada, and a Botanical Glossary, pp. 1-49. Published by the author, at Lowville, New York, Sept.. 1910 Price $.75
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The book is “aimed to include all the generally accepted native and naturalized trees north of the latitude of the northern boundary of North Carolina, and east of the Rocky Mountains.” The key as drawn up is based on the normal typical leaves, ‘‘such as we consider distinctive of the various species and by which we recognize them,” ... “the average specimens on a mature tree, not those on very young or excessively vigorous shoots.’ Fruit characters are also included in connection with some of the trees ‘‘either as essential or accessory parts of the key; though many species can readily be traced without referring to the fruits.’ The book is intended to supplement the more extensive publications on native trees,—‘‘to enable one to have in a compact and systematic form an aid in the identification of trees by a study of their leaves’. The value of this little book to teachers lies in its availability as an aid for field work for older secondary students and for college students. Work on the identification of plants has a disciplinary value much higher than the amount of time usually devoted to it would seem to indicate. Trees offer probably by far the best medium for such work because of their size and usually the corresponding saliency of their distinctive characters, and also because of the greater interest attaching to them than to less conspicuous plants. Of course the value of any particular key for class work will depend in the end upon its workability in actual service, but those who are familiar with Mr. Hough’s Handbook will not question his very high qualifications for the preparation of a practicable key. As a matter of fact an examination of his treatment of some of the difficult genera shows that it is as good as would be expected. The differentiation of the species of oak is particularly good. One omission there is which detracts somewhat from the ready usefulness of the key—this is the failure to cite any of the varying different distributions of the trees. So for the oaks, a resident of Massachusetts seeking to identify a red oak would have to decide between four species, one of which is native farther south but which, at least in leaf characters, the red oak may at times resemble. For example I have in mind two large oaks with large flat-saucered acorns growing in the Litchfield hills in
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northwestern Connecticut, the leaves of which might key out at Q. digitata, a southern species. If, however, the range of digi- tata were indicated, its elimination would have been instant. For many trees, however, this difficulty will not present itself and the book may be heartily recommended. Its size, about five by six and one half inches, and its flexible cover make it a convenient book to carry in the field. Rap C. BENEDICT.
Stevens’ Diseases of Economic P.ants
A new book entitled Diseases of Economic Plants, by F. L. Stevens and J. G. Hall,* of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, has recently appeared. This work is de- signed to meet the needs of those students who wish to recognize, wherever this can be done with any degree of certainty, and treat diseases of plants without the laborious process of a detailed microscopic study. Those characters are used in diagnosing diseases which are evident to the naked eye or through the aid of the hand lens, and technicalities are avoided so far as possible, thus making the text a usable one to the agricultural students of the lower grade. The work is confined mainly to the bacterial and fungous diseases.
The introductory chapters contain a brief historical sketch of the development of the science of phytopathology; also statis- tics regarding the damage caused by fungi, symptoms of disease, methods of preventing diseases, formulae of the various fungicides with directions as to the best methods of applying them, and a discussion of the cost and profit resulting from their use.
The body of the work is devoted to a description of the symp- toms of the diseases of plants which are of economic importance with directions as to the best methods of controlling them. These diseases are classified according to the natural relationship of the hosts on which they occur and all of the diseases of a given host are treated under that host regardless of the relationships of the fungi which cause the diseases. The terms used in desig-
*Stevens, F. L., & Hall, J. G. Diseases of Economic Plants. Pp. ijx-+1-513. f. 1-214. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1910. Price $2.00.
20)
nating the various diseases are those most commonly used or where these are lacking or ambiguous a name is made by adding the termination ‘‘ose’’ to the generic name of the fungus which causes the disease. The work is thoroughly illustrated, the illus- trations being of such a nature as to be of material aid in the diagnosis of the various diseases.
The appendix contains a brief discussion of the differences in the physiology of the chlorophyl-bearing and chlorophylless plants with a few of the most striking morphological characters of the bacteria and fungi. This part of the work is very brief.
One of the points on which the work is to be commended is the fact that the manuscript of the various parts has been submitted to the best specialists in the groups treated for corrections and criticism, thus eliminating many of the errors which might other- wise appear in a work of this kind and ensuring accuracy as to details. The book will doubtless meet the need of a large number of students, especially in our agricultural colleges.
FE. J, SEAVER:
Dr. J. A. Harris (Biometrika, November) presents an exhaus- tive study ‘On the selective elimination occurring during the development of the fruits of Staphylea.”’ The author, keeping in mind the very different problem of the selective elimination of individuals, has striven to show the morphological and physio- logical value of the selective elimination of certain types of organs produced by individuals. Using statistical methods, now familiar through the work of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, he recapitulates (in part), after presenting detailed tables of 21,000 locules and their ovules, thus:
“The ovaries with relatively low numbers of ovules are more extensively eliminated than those with high numbers.”’, “The: ovaries which remain after elimination are more radially sym- metrical than those which are eliminated.” ‘Ovaries with one or more locules with an ‘odd’ number of ovules are more likely to be eliminated than those with all the locules bearing an ‘even’ numiber.’’ ‘‘Dimerous ovaries seem less likely, and tetramerous ovaries more likely to develop to maturity than the normal trimerous ones.”’
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So far as the last statement is concerned, the selective elimina- tion there recorded must be of very recent origin, for tetramerous ovaries of the bladder-nut are the exception rather than the rule. And if the elimination continues ever so slowly tetramerous ovaries of the bladder-nut must eventually become perfectly
normal abnormalities. Wea:
PROCEEDINGS, OF# THE CLUB
NOVEMBER 8, I9I0
The meeting was called to order at the American Museum of Natural History at 8:30 P. M., with Dr. E. B. Southwick in the chair. Forty-six persons were present. The minutes of the meeting of October 26 were read and approved.
The announced paper of the evening on “‘The Native Trees of Northeastern United States’? was then presented by Mr. Norman Taylor. The lecture was illustrated by lantern slides.
Adjourned. PERcy WILSON, Secretary.
NEWS ITEMS
The Naples Table Association for promoting Laboratory Re- search by Women wishes to call attention to the opportunities for research in zodlogy, botany and physiology provided by the foundation of this table. The year of the Association begins in April and all applications for the year 1911-12 should be sent to the Secretary on or before March first, r91z. The appoint- ments are made by the Executive Committee.
A prize of $1,000 has been offered periodically by the Associa- tion for the best thesis written by a woman, on a scientific subject, embodying new observations and new conclusions based on an independent laboratory research in biological, chemical or physical science. The fourth prize will be awarded in April, 1911. Application blanks, information in regard to the advantages at Naples for research and collection of material, and circulars giving
22
the conditions of the award of the prize will be furnished by the Secretary, Mrs. A. D. Mead, 283 Wayland Avenue, Providence, Rie
At the New York Botanical Garden, Dr. Arthur Hollick has gone to Washington on a six month’s leave of absence to study Alaskan fossils, and Dr. J. A. Shafer and Mr. Percy Wilson have gone to eastern and western Cuba respectively to continue the botanical exploration of that island. Volume 6, no. 22, of the BULLETIN, containing descriptions of many new Bolivian plants by Dr. H. H. Rusby, was issued 30 of November. Volume 3, part 1 of North American Flora appeared 29 of December. It contains the order by Hypocreales.
The college entrance examination board at its recent meeting appointed the following to prepare examination questions in botany for 1911. W.W. Rowlee, Cornell, chief examiner, M. E. Kennedy, Mount Holyoke, and Louis Murbach, Detroit, as- sociates.
In the recently issued second edition of ‘““American Men of Science,”’ the editor, Prof. J. McKeen Cattell, as the result of an elaborate statistical study, ranks the five leading institutions in the following order of botanical eminence: Harvard, New York Botanical Garden, U.S. Dept. Agriculture, Chicago University, and Cornell University.
Dr. Charles E. Bessey, professor of botany and dean at the University of Nebraska, has been elected. president of the 1911 Meeting of the A. A. A. S. to be held at Washington, beginning December 27, I9II.
The Botanical Society of America has elected professor W. G. Farlow, of Harvard University, as its president for I9II.
ep pte ‘
The Torrey Botanical Club
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Be Mol. rt February, IgII No. 2
ORREYA
~~ A Monruty Journar or BoranicaL Notes and News
EDITED FOR
THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
BY
NORMAN TAYLOR
AS JOHN TORREY, 1796-1873 CONTENTS
he Nature and Function of the Plant Oxidases: HRINESE ID): + GEAR Kick en Je 23
ediscovery of Tillandsia Swartzii Baker: N. L. BRITTON ........000..... 222... <a 31 Local Flora Notes — VIII: Norman WAV ROR 42245 sSaveeoct aan GR OTe Pa ee 33°
Reviews:
The Plant Life of Maryland : ROLAND M. HARPER.......: Paige aa ae Nae ame 36
Apgar’s Ornamental Shrubs of the United States: GrorcEe V. NASH........... 42
Proceedings of the Glabrae es PUR ai ot ee 44
Oi interestito Peactets ms es ae Sey ati re Ss on lie MA eh goa - 46
PIN CWWA SELON SY che yn icc ds SucTO ste sol Rear Ace Ran Te Meee ieee ale hake Souen nee petaGa see sheen entd Gita 50
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TORREYA
February, IgI1 Vol. 11. No. 2
THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF THE PLANT OXIDASES*
By ErNeEsT D. CLARK
One of the most noteworthy characteristics of living organisms is their ability to carry out many deep-seated chemical changes without the ordinary means of producing such reactions. In other words, the living cell is a laboratory equipped to provide the most varied chemical transformations, yet with none of the relatively crude and violent agents such as high temperatures and strong chemicals which we are forced to use in the test-tube experiments of our man-made laboratories. In no case is this power of the cell more striking than in the oxidative phenomena of plants and animals; the latter especially are continually oxi- dizing and transforming large amounts of material for the main- tenance of their life, and yet these oxidations are accompanied by few of the physical effects associated with oxidation and combustion in daily life orin the laboratory. It is not surprising, then, that the attention of biologists and chemists was early attracted to the investigation of biological oxidations. Beginning with Schoenbein in the fourth decade of the last century, and continuing to the present, numerous have been the theories advanced in regard to these phenomena. However, before pro- ceeding with a discussion of the factors involved in the oxidations of the plant, it is desirable to indicate the means which the cell
* This paper is based on the author’s dissertation entitled ‘‘ The Plant Oxidases,”’ which was published last year in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Ph.D. in Columbia University. {No. 1, Vol. 11, of TORREYA, comprising pp. 1-22, was issued 31 Ja ro1t.]
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has at its disposal for carrying out its chemical reactions with such wonderful efficiency.
The fermenting action of certain bacteria and yeasts upon sugars and other substances has long been known and used in the industries. These yeasts were called organized ferments, while chemical preparations like pepsin, etc., which exhibit a fermenting or digesting action, were called unorganized ferments. This dis- tinction was retained until 1897 when Buchner performed his clas- sical experiment on yeast, showing that by the action of pressure applied in a hydraulic press he was able to obtain a liquid possessing all the fermenting power of living yeast plants even in the absence of the living organisms. This substance or property of the expressed liquid Buchner called an ‘‘enzyme.”’ He said that substances of like nature were products of the life- activities of cells, but were not dependent on the living cell for the exhibition of their characteristic fermenting action. It is to ferments or enzymes like this that the cell owes its great chemical efficiency. Enzymes are members of the class of substances known as ‘‘catalyzers’’ which, by processes that are not fully understood, cause reactions to take place with a speed not shown under ordinary conditions. Generally, catalysts are capable of causing or assisting in reactions without being themselves de- stroyed by the processes they propagate.
In discussing the oxidases or oxidizing enzymes a somewhat critical attitude is necessary in the face of many conflicting and even contradictory results. To take an example, several of the so-called oxidizing enzymes have been shown to be not enzymes but heat-withstanding inorganic or organic catalyzers. At the present time our knowledge of these substances is being increased almost daily, with the result that we are now in a sort of tran- sitional period, the literature of the whole subject being filled with assertions and denials on the part of equally able investi- gators. The tendency at present seems to be to consider as enzymes those apparently complex organic substances of non- diffusable nature and of high catalytic power, which are produced during the life processes of plants and animals; but when in- vestigation reveals definitely their exact chemical nature, such
25
as the ‘‘laccase”’ of alfalfa, which Euler and Bolin! have recently proved to be calcium salts of simple organic acids, then they are referred to as organic catalysts. Bearing this in mind, the writer will use the terms oxidizing enzyme and oxidase interchangeably for convenience and with no implication that they are enzymes according to the strictest definition, or that future investigation may not prove the action of all the classes of oxidizing enzymes to be due to the same substance or property.
In regard to the réle and the nature of many of the oxidases, we are still ignorant in spite of the study that has been devoted to them. In the case of enzymes like pepsin, trypsin, and lipase, investigation has produced considerable advances in our knowl- edge of them, but this cannot be said of the oxidases. In fact, there are doubts in some cases whether certain of the oxidases are enzymes at all, because a number of them have been proved to be comparatively simple organic or inorganic substances. However, such oxidases as peroxidase and tyrosinase still hold their places in the category of enzymes. In classifying the oxidases several arrangements have been suggested, many of which led only to confusion. After 1903, a more accurate classi- fication was proposed, for it was then that Bach and Chodat? showed that the so-called oxidases of Bertrand are really com- posed of three separate parts as indicated below:
I. Oxygenase; a preformed organic peroxide resulting from auto-oxidation.
2. Peroxidase; a true enzyme which activates the oxygenase or added H2Ok, etc."
3. Catalase; a substance decomposing H2O2 into H:O0 + Or. Since 1903, a great deal of work has been done which shows that this conception of the so-called oxidases is founded on fact.
1Euler and Bolin. Zur Kenntniss biologische wichtiger Oxydationen:
(a) I. (Same title as the series, Zur Kenntniss, etc.), Zts. Physiol. Chem. 57: 80. 1908.
(b) II. Ueber die Reindarstellung der Medicago laccase, Zts. Physiol. Chem. ee LOO:
2Bach and Chodat. Zerlegung der sogenannte Oxydasen in Oxygenasen und Peroxydasen—V. Ber. Chem. Gesell. 36: 606. 1903.
26 :
In the last edition of Oppenheimer’s ‘‘ Die Fermente’” he has adopted the following classification of the plant oxidases, which will be used in this paper:
1. Laccase; phenolase, etc.
2. Tyrosinase, melanin-forming enzymes.
3. ‘‘Oxidases.”’
(a) Oxygenase. (b) Peroxidase. 4. Catalase.
LACCASE
Schoenbein’s interest in the problems of oxidation led him to investigate the cause of the coloration of certain mushrooms, and in 1856! he published his results. In Boletus luridus he found a substance soluble in alcohol that showed the same bluing from injury of the fungus or on treatment with oxidizing agents in the test-tube, that characterizes the bluing of the guaiac tincture; moreover, the same substances decolorize this blued extract as in the case of the blued guaiac tincture. Schoenbein saw the importance of the fact that spontaneous bluing only took place in the fungus ztself, and concluded therefore that there was a substance present in the fungus with power to greatly increase the oxidizing power of the atmospheric oxygen. In Agaricus san- guinareus he was also able to find the same sort of spontaneously coloring substance that he noted in Boletus luridus. He con- cluded that, besides the chromogenic substance of these fungi, there is a substance present that can ozonize (activate) atmo- spheric oxygen; he called such an activating substance a “Sauer-
‘
stofferreger,’’ or literally an “‘oxygen-exciter.’’
The first really careful work on oxidizing ferments was done by Yoshida® who, in 1883, investigated the chemistry of lacquer.
3Oppenheimer. Die Fermente und ihre Wirkungen, “ Die Oxydasen,”’ chap. 7, PP. 337-391, Spezielle Teil, 3d ed. 1909. Also for an excellent treatment of oxidases in general see:
Kastle. The Oxidases. Bull. 59, Hyg. Lab. U. S. Pub. Health and Mar. Hosp. Serv. Washington, 1910.
4Schoenbein. Ueber die Selbstblauung einige Pilze, ete. Jour. Prakt. Chem. 67: 496. 1856.
5 Yoshida. Chemistry of Lacquer. Jour. Chem. Soc. 43: 472. 1883.
or
27
The lacquer-work of the Japanese has long been a famous and beautiful product of that country. The milky latex of the tree Rhus vernicifera, rapidly oxidizes in a moist atmosphere to a black lustrous varnish which is not attacked by any chemical except concentrated nitric acid. In the latex Yoshida found a sub- stance having the composition Cy4H gO, which he called urushic acid; besides this, he found a small amount of a nitrogenous constituent, ‘‘a peculiar diastatic matter,’’ which rapidly caused the urushic acid to oxidize to the black oxyurushic acid (Cy,H;s0s). This peculiar diastatic matter of Yoshida lost its power to oxidize urushic acid after being heated to 63°; so Yoshida thought it a substance of enzymatic nature, which acted as an oxygen carrier in these oxidations.
Some years later, Bertrand® studied the lacquer formation more carefully. He called the substance an oxidizing ferment, which he believed brought about the oxidation of the mother-substance of the black lacquer. He found that the ferment was destroyed by boiling, and also that it was present in gum arabic and gum senegal, as well as in the latex of species of Rhus. He named this ’ and tested numerous plants for it, finding it present in many cases. Bertrand used the tincture of guaiacum as a test for laccase.
In 1895, Bertrand with Bourquelot’ tested a great many of the higher fungi for laccase, using guaiacum as a reagent. They found that laccase was widely distributed in these plants as well as in those containing chlorophyll. They also investigated those fungi which become colored when injured, and they believed the phenomenon was caused by a ferment identical with laccase. Ber- trand® has shown that the oxidizing power of laccase is in some
ferment ‘‘laccase’
way connected with the manganese present; for, by repeated pre- cipitation with alcohol, he divided his laccase preparation into three
6 Bertrand. (a) Sur la latex de Varbre a laque. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 118: 1215. 1894. (b) Recherches sur le suc laiteux de l’arbre a laque du Tonkin. Bull. Soc. Chim. [3], 11: 717. 1894.
7Bertrand and Bourquelot. Laccase dans les champignons. Compt. Rend. Soc. Biol. 47: 579. 1895.
8 Bertrand. Sur l’action oxydante des sels manganeux et sur la constitution chimique des oxydases. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 124: 1355. 18097.
28
fractions of different manganese contents, which with hydroqui- none solutions showed activities proportional to their percentages of manganese. Bearing this in mind, other investigators have used mixtures of protein substances and manganese salts to prepare artificial oxidases giving many of the reactions of the natural preparations. It should be noted, however, that Bach and other investigators have prepared oxidases from various - plants which, although active, did not contain manganese or iron.
During the last year, Euler and Bolin? have shown that the laccase prepared from alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is not an enzyme according to the commonly accepted usage of the word. They found that heating did not destroy the activity of the oxidase, and that the protein thus precipitated could be filtered off without lowering the activity in the least. This so-called laccase proved to be mostly calcium glycollate, with traces of the calcium salts of citric, malic, and mesoxalic acids.
If, as Bach and Chodat say, laccase consists of organic perox- ides activated by the enzyme peroxidase, then it is the peroxidase part which confers upon laccase what specificity it has. How- ever, laccase is not a specific enzyme in the narrow sense because, besides the laccol of Rhus spp., it will oxidize guaiacol, hydro- quinone, guaiac tincture, phenolphthalin, and many phenols and cyclic amino derivatives; still, it is not able to oxidize tyrosin or any of the tyrosin derivatives upon which tyrosinase exerts a truly specific action. So then, laccase is a specific enzyme, in that it acts only upon substances containing a certain grouping in their structure. The fact that laccase acts upon guaiac tincture and upon many other reagents usually employed to detect peroxidases, etc., makes one skeptical in regard to the nearly universal occur- rence of laccase claimed for it by the earlier investigators.
TYROSINASE
After Bertrand and Bourquelot had shown that the bluing of Boletus cyanescens upon injury was due to the effect of laccase acting with the atmospheric oxygen upon the ‘“‘boletol”’ in the
9 Loe. cit.
29
fungus, they turned their attention to the case of Russula spp., especially R. nigricans, the color change of which upon injury is from pink or reddish to black. In different researches they showed that laccase could not produce the same effect, and further, that it was an oxidation of a definite chemical substance in the fungus. Bertrand” next showed that the crystalline chro- mogen in Russula spp. was tyrosin and that it was also present in beets, potatoes, etc.; accordingly he named the enzyme which caused this change “‘tyrosinase,’’ and said that laccase and tyro- sinase were two representatives of the group of ‘‘oxidases.”’ About this’ time it was found that rosettes of tyrosin crystals were present in the tissues of the fungus Russula nigricans.
At first it was thought that tyrosinase was as wide-spread an enzyme as laccase, but later results show this to be unlikely. Lehman and Sano" examined bacteria and higher plants for tyrosinase. A few species of bacteria showed the presence of tyrosinase, but in no case could it be separated from the living bacterial cells. Among the higher plants tyrosinase is present in wheat, barley, potatoes, Papaver orientale, Rhus spp., etc. Thus we see, this enzyme is probably concerned in the formation of the black wound-covering over injured areas on potatoes.
The action of tyrosinase results in a yellowish pink coloration, then reddish, then brown, and finally black. This reddish black oxidation or condensation product is called melanin and is closely related to the natural animal pigments in dark hair, etc., and also in the so-called melanotic tumors. This action of tyrosinase and the resulting melanin have attracted a great deal of attention. The first investigators said that the action of the tyrosinase was simply the oxidation of tyrosin to melanin, and that the produc- tion of a black coloration in a plant was due to the action of its tyrosinase on tyrosin. However, it soon became clear that the matter was not so simple as at first thought. Certain experiments seem to show that the early change of tyrosin to a pink color
10Bertrand. Sur une nouvelle oxydase ou ferment soluble oxydant d’origine végétale. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 122: 1215. 18096. Also Bull. Soc. Chim. [3], 15: 793. 18096.
ULehman and Sano. Ueber das Vorkommen von Oxydations-fermenten bei Bakterien und héheren Pflanzen. Arch. f. Hyg. 67: 99. 1908.
30
may be caused by an another enzyme and then it is upon this intermediate product that tyrosinase acts, finally giving the black melanin. The earlier workers considered that tyrosinase was a specific enzyme acting only on tyrosin, but in the course of time it has become evident that tyrosinase is specific in the same sense as laccase; namely, it acts upon a group of compounds closely related im structure.
Just as it is possible to obtain anti-toxins, research has shown that we may obtain anti-enzymes. In this place we are con- cerned only with the anti-oxidases, which have been produced in the usual manner, that is, by the repeated injection of small though increasing amounts of the enzyme preparation into a rabbit or other animal, and the withdrawal of some of the blood after immunity has been established to that particular enzyme. The blood serum from such immune animals prevents or retards the natural oxidizing action of the enzyme under investigation. Gessard” obtained anti-tyrosinase and anti-laccase that com- pletely inhibited the oxidizing power of the corresponding plant enzyme preparations. We shall see later that anti-oxidases may play an important part in the physiology of the plant.
Generally speaking, tyrosinase seems to be the nearest to the true enzyme of any of the oxidases with which we are acquainted. It is most specific in its action, most sensitive to exterior con- ditions, and up to the present, has not been replaced by any artificial enzyme in the oxidation of tyrosin to a melanin. It is usually associated with laccase in plants, but the presence of laccase does not indicate the appearance of tyrosinase, while on the other hand, the latter is almost invariably accompanied by laccase.
As in the case of laccase, Bach™ claims that the tyrosinase is really composed of two parts, oxygenase and the peroxidase. He found that by the use of alcohol precipitations he was able to reduce the activity of the tyrosinase of the potato, as previ-
12Gessard. (a) Anti-laccase. Compt. Rend. Soc. Biol. 139: 644. 1904. (0) Sur la tyrosinase. Ann. Inst. Pasteur 15: 593. I901.
13 Bach. Ueber die Wirkungsweise der Tyrosinase. Ber. Chem. Gesell. 41: 221. 1908.
ol
ously noted by Bertrand; but curiously enough, the addition of hydrogen peroxide to the enzyme solution restored it to its usual activity. This and many similar experiments led Bach to believe that tyrosinase contains the oxygenase and peroxidase complements.* Our final conclusion must be then, that tyrosi- nase may have the usual oxidase complements (oxygenase plus peroxidase) and that its peroxidase may be specific just as the peroxidase of laccase is specific in its action upon substances having a certain constitution. (To be continued)
LABORATORY OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEW YORK.
REDISCOVERY OF TILLANDSIA SWARTZII BAKER By N. L. Britton
In “Journal of Botany,” 26: 12, published in 1888, and in “Handbook of Bromeliaceae,”’ 191, 1889, Mr. J. G. Baker de- scribed this species, based on a specimen collected many years ago by Swartz in the island of Jamaica and supposed by him to be Tillandsia paniculata L. Professor Carl Mez, in his Monograph of the family Bromeliaceae (DC. Mon. Phan. 9: 884), published in 1896, states that he has seen this specimen, but regards it as doubtful, perhaps referable to the Liliaceae.
The type specimen is preserved in the herbarium of the British Museum of Natural History, and while there in the spring of 1910, I examined it and was inclined to agree with Professor Mez. But, on returning to New York immediately afterward, I found in a parcel of choice Jamaica plants collected early the same year by Mr. William Harris, fine specimens, which I recognized as of the same species, and on sending one of these to Mr. Edmund Baker at the British Museum, he confirmed my identification by a comparison with the type. Mr. Harris found the plant growing on rocks in the Rio Minho Valley, March 3, 1910 (No. 10,855), more than one hundred years after its collection in
14 Recently he found that the salts of manganese, etc., could apparently replace the peroxidase part. In this connection see: Ber. Chem. Gesell. 43: 366. 1910.
Tillandsia Swartzii
Jamaica by Swartz, and, presumably, it has not been seen in a living state by any botanist during this long period, a striking illustration of the extremely local distribution of some West Indian species.
It would appear that the plant was correctly referred to the Bromeliaceae at its original description; as Mr. Baker remarks, it is allied, at least in habit, to Tillandsia utriculata L., though he places the two in different subgenera. In floral structure it differs from both his subgenera Platystachys and Cyathophora by having a pair of scales at the base of each corolla-segment, and in this feature agrees with his subgenus Vriesia, a group regarded by Professor Mez as of generic rank.
As shown by the specimens collected by Mr. Harris, the inflo- rescence is about 1.3 meters high, floriferous from about the middle, the lower panicle-branches up to 3 dm. long, the lower bracts of the scape lanceolate, 1-1.5 dm. long, long-acuminate; the basal leaves are narrowly lanceolate, 6-8 dm. long, 4-6 cm. wide and very long-acuminate, glabrous and finely many-nerved; the flowers are sessile and quite widely separated on the slender branches of the inflorescence, their bracts ovate-lanceolate, acutish, about 1 cm. long; the linear sepals are 2 cm. long, and the thin parallel-veined petals 3 cm. long, linear-lanceolate and acuminate, about one-fourth longer than the stamens.
The capsule was described by Mr. J. G. Baker as at least twice as long as the calyx.
NEw YorRK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
LOCALE DEORN NOME Sv Las
By NORMAN TAYLOR
Species Specimens wanted from CRUCIFERAE Arabis hirsuta (L.) Scop. Northern N. J. and N. Y. Cardamine pratensis L. N. J. or elsewhere in the range.t
* Continued from Bull. Torrey Club 37: 559-562. N 1910. + The local flora range as prescribed by the Club’s Preliminary Catalogue of 1888 is as follows: All of the state of Connecticut; Long Island; in New York the
34
Species Specomens wanted from
Cardamine rotundifolia Michx. Western N. J. and eastern Pa.
Cardamine purpurea (Torr.) Northern N. Y. and Pa. Britton.
Dentaria maxima Nutt. Northern N. Y., N. J., and Pa.
Dentaria anomala Eames. Anywhere in the range.
Dentaria diphylla Michx. INS Je
Dentaria incisifolia Eames. Anywhere in the range.
Dentaria heterophylla Nutt. INGE
Draba caroliniana Walt. Anywhere in the range.
Lepidium apetalum Willd. Anywhere in the range.
Lepidium medium L. ING AZo aime IN. Jf:
Lepidium graminifolium L. Anywhere in the range.
Roripa americana (A. Gray) Northern N. Y. and Pa. Britton. Roripa hispida (Desv.) Britton. N. Y. and Pa.
Lunaria annua L. Anywhere in the range.
Arabis patens Sullivant. Eastern Pa.
Brassica japonica Siebold. Anywhere in the range. SARRACENIACEAE
Sarracenia purpurea L. Westchester, Orange, and
Rockland counties, N. Y., and from Somerset Co., N. J.
DROSERACEAE
Drosera filiformis Raf. Middlesex, Mercer, and Camden counties, N. J.
PODOSTEMONACEAE
Podostemon Ceratophyllum Anywhere in the range. Michx.
counties bordering the Hudson River up to and including Columbia and Greene, also Sullivan and Delaware counties; all of New Jersey; and Pike, Wayne, Monroe, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon, Bucks, Berks, Schuylkill. Montgomery, Philadelphia, Delaware and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. :
Species
Specimens wanted from
CRASSULACEAE
Tillaea aquatica L. Sempervivum tectorum L. Rhodiola rosea L.. (Sedum).
Sedum ternatum Michx.
Anywhere in the range.
N. J. and N. Y.
Any stations not in Britton’s Manual.
Anywhere in the range.
PARNASSIACEAE
Parnassia caroliniana Michx.
Anywhere in the coastal plain.
SAXIFRAGACEAE
Micranthes (Saxtfraga) micran- thidifolia (Haw.) Small.
Micranthes (Saxifraga) penn- sylvanica (L.) Haw.
Tiarella cordifolia L.
Heuchera Curtis T. & G.
Heuchera pubescens Pursh.
Mitella nuda L.
Chrysosplenium americanum Schwein.
Eastern Pa. Northern N. J.
Eastern Pa.
Anywhere in the range. Mountains of Pa.
Northern N. Y.
We leveentral Ne Je, and Pa-
HyDRANGEACEAE Hydrangea arborescens L. New Jersey. ITEACEAE Ttea virginica L. Ocean and Monmouth
counties, N. J.
HAMAMELIDACEAE
Hamamelis virginiana L.
In or near the pine-barrens of
IN-alerand ver:
ALTINGIACEAE
Liquidambar Styraciflua L.
In or north of the highlands of
the Hudson.
36
Species Specimens wanted from GROSSULARIACEAE Ribes lacustre (Pers.) Poir. = Northern N. Y.
Ribes glandulosum Grauer. (R. Pa. & N.Y. prostratum L’ Her.)* Ribes americanum Mill. (R. Northern N. Y. and N. J. floridum L’Her.) Rives triste Pall. (R. rubrum L.) N. J. and N. Y. Grossularia jhuirtella (Michx.) N. J. and Pa. Spach. (R. huronense Rydb.) Grossularia (Ribes) Cynosbatt Northern N. J., N. Y., and Pa. (L.) Mill. PLATANACEAE Platanus occidentalis L. Ulster, Greene, and Delaware
counties, N. Y. NEw YorK BOTANICAL GARDEN.
REVIEWS
The Plant Life of Maryland +
There are very few states in the Union whose vegetation has been described with any pretense of thoroughness, and in Mary- land not even a catalogue of the vascular plants of the whole state had been published before; probably chiefly because the state contains very few rare and perhaps no endemic species, and therefore offers little attraction to the average systematic botanist. Maryland is the northernmost state, south of the glaciated region, which extends all the way from the coast to the mountains (and incidentally probably the only one which contains both Taxus minor and Taxodium, or Pinus Taeda and
* The names used are those maintained in North American Flora 22; 193-209. 1908. The ones in brackets are those in Britton’s manual.
+ The Plant Life of Maryland. By Forrest Shreve, M. A. Chrysler, Frederick H. Blodgett and F. W. Besley. Special publication Maryland Weather Service, new series, Vol. 3, 533 pp-, 39 plates (including 1 map), 15 text-figures (including I2 maps). Baltimore, 1910.
Abstracts or reviews of it have already appeared in Science II. 32: 837-868.
Dec. 16, 1910; Forestry Quarterly 8: 484-486. t1o11; and Scottish Geograph- ical Magazine 27: 1-6. f. 1-4. Jan., I9QII.
37
Lanx). Although comparatively small in area, it includes parts of such distinct physiographic provinces as the coastal plain, the Piedmont region, and the Alleghany mountains, the last reaching altitudes within the state of over 3000 feet; and the present work throws much light on the local distribution of the plants characteristic of each of these areas, or of two or more of them, and is an important contribution to existing knowledge of the vegetation of eastern North America.
After being delayed considerably beyond the expected time of appearance, as is very often the case with important scientific works, this handsome royal octavo volume, embodying the re- sults of field work which was done mostly in the years 1904-6, was finally given to the public about the middle of last summer, the exact date not being known.
In mechanical make-up the book is fully up to the standard of other recent scientific publications of the state of Maryland, which means that it is practically faultless. The type is large and neat, and the 74 half-tone illustrations of vegetation are well chosen and skillfully executed in nearly every case, the principal exception being that one or two of them are a few degrees out of plumb.*
The principal author and one of the others having been absent from the state and largely engrossed with other matters during the printing, it fell to the lot of Mr. E. W. Berry as editor to bring the several contributions into harmony with each other as far as possible, and to attend to numerous other essential details; a kind of work which can hardly be appreciated by the reader, as it attracts attention only when poorly done.t
Besides the preface, indexes, and other necessary appendages, the book is divided into Part 1, Introduction, 42 pages; Part 2,
* This is a defect often observed in the best magazines, both popular and scien- tific, and even in text-books; but there would seem to be little excuse for it, as it lies within the power of author, editor, and engraver, each and severally, to remedy it before it is too late.
+ The reviewer notes with gratification the editor’s independence of an auto- cratic band of geographical orthographers located about forty miles from him, in spelling the names of the three counties which have possessive endings according to local and official usage, and not according to arbitrary rules.
38
Floristic plant geography, 30 pages; Part 3, Ecological plant geography, 192 pages; Part 4, Relation of natural vegetation to crops, 9 pages; Part 5, Agricultural features, 53 pages; Part 6, Forests and their products, 17 pages; and Part 7, List of plants, I14 pages. In all of these parts a three-fold division of the state on physiographic grounds (and not climatic, as one might be led to expect from the auspices under which the book ap- peared) into coastal zone (coastal plain), midland zone (meta- morphic or crystalline rocks), and mountain zone (Alleghany plateau) is recognized. The coastal zone is further subdivided by Chesapeake Bay into two perceptibly different parts, and the midland zone into lower and upper (or foot-hills and ridges), corresponding with the Piedmont region and Blue Ridge of the states farther south.
Part 1, by Dr. Shreve, outlines the scope of the work, making a sharp distinction between floristic and ecological plant geog- raphy (a point which deserves more attention than has been given to it in the past), and then discusses the climatology, topography, mineralogy, and soils of the state.
Part 2, also by Dr. Shreve, opens with a brief sketch of the history of botanical exploration in Maryland, up to the time when the present authors took the field. Then follow lists of plants which are supposed to be confined to a single zone or to two adjacent zones, plants which reach their northern limits on or near the Delaware peninsula, strand plants, salt-marsh plants, pine-barren plants which seem to skip Maryland, etc. If the systematic list (part 7) represents fully the authors’ knowledge of the local distribution of plants within the state, then some of the zonal lists might have been considerably modified or extended. But discrepancies of this kind are almost inevitable in such a large book, in which considerable time must elapse between the writing of the various parts. Kearney’s table of the northern limits of ‘‘austroriparian’’ plants, although men- tioned approvingly in a footnote on page 93, was apparently not utilized to the utmost in preparing the list of plants whose northern limits pass through Maryland. The list of “pine- barren”’ plants which are not known between New Jersey and
Virginia is somewhat misleading in that it includes at least half a dozen species which in the southern states are known only in the mountains, and not in the coastal plain, and one or two whose occurrence northeast of Maryland is doubtful. (It is interesting to note that nearly half of the 44 spermatophytes listed as pine- barren plants are monocotyledons, and the proportion would be still larger if the corrections just indicated had been made.) This part closes with an instructive discussion of the factors by which vegetation provinces are differentiated, and a bibliog- raphy of works relating to the flora of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
In Part 3, the longest and most important of all, the vegetation of each of the five subdivisions of the state is classified by habitat; Dr. Shreve taking the easternmost, middle and westernmost, Dr. Chrysler the ‘‘Western Shore”’ (that part of the coastal plain west of the Bay), and Dr. Blodgett the upper midland zone.
In the habitat lists prepared by Dr. Shreve, the species, in- stead of being arranged in taxonomic, alphabetical, or merely haphazard order, as was customary up to four or five years ago (and is yet, to a considerable extent), are divided into trees, shrubs, and herbs (bryophytes and thallophytes being left out of consideration), and arranged in approximate order of abun- dance (as stated in a rather inconspicuous way in a footnote on page 110). Unfortunately in such lists the trees are mentioned only by their. common names, and these are run into paragraphs instead of being arranged in columns like those of the herbs, which makes this part less valuable for purposes of reference than it should be. In order to find from the index all that is said in the book about any particular species of tree its common name has to be constantly borne in mind. The names of the herbs are sometimes run into paragraphs too, but in most cases they are arranged in single columns, thus wasting considerable space which might easily have been filled with condensed informa- tion about the structure and adaptations, or even the geographical distribution, of each species. If smaller and more closely set type or double columns had been used for the herbs each habitat list would have been confined to one or two pages, and thus
40
more easily comprehended at a single glance. These details however were probably not left entirely to the judgment of the authors.
In Dr. Chrysler’s part some definite ratios of abundance are given for the trees in certain habitats, but the herbs in most of his lists seem to be arranged in Engler & Prantl sequence, with no indication of relative abundance. Dr. Blodgett had to deal with a rather complex region, in which he found it expedient to describe almost every ridge and valley separately, and to mix trees, shrubs, and herbs together in his habitat lists, as if in the same order in which they were observed in the short time avail- able for field work in that region.
The chapter on agricultural features (Part 5), by I Dr. Blodgett, although it seems a little out of place in a volume devoted primarily to phytogeography, is a valuable original contribution to economic geography. After the history of settlement and agricultural development of the state there follows a discussion of the influence of soils on civilization, and then notes on the distribution of several of the principal crops, illustrated by maps.
Mr. Besley’s remarks on forests (Part 6) are rather brief, but it would be hard to cover the ground any better than he did with the same number of words, and the forest industries of Maryland are probably not important enough at the present time to justify a more exhaustive treatment.
In preparing the list of plants collected and observed, Dr. Shreve did not waste any time ransacking old herbaria with a view of citing every specimen ever collected in Maryland, but included only plants which had been seen by him or his associates or by local botanists still living in the state. The list therefore makes no claim to completeness, but is primarily a taxonomic index to the plants which are classified by habitat in Part 3.
The nomenclature follows Britton & Brown’s Illustrated Flora (1896-1898), and all specific names are decapitalized, as has been customary in Washington since 1893, but not so much else- where. Numerous arbitrary “‘common’”’ names which are never seen outside of botanical literature have been inserted in the catalogue, but this practice is not carried to the extreme that it
4]
was in some quarters a decade or two ago, for many of the less familiar species are left without such names. Ranges and bibliographic citations or other references to literature are omitted, which is entirely justifiable in such an unpretentious catalogue and in a region so well covered by descriptive _ manuals.
The information given about the distribution of the several species within the state is not as complete as an interested reader might wish, only about two lines (besides the name) being devoted to each, on the average, and usually not more than one county being mentioned. For over one-fourth of the species the cata- logue gives no indication whatever of habitat, and a still larger
ae
number are treated in very general terms, like ““swamps,”’ “‘dry open situations,” etc., which are not readily correlated with the habitats described in detail in Part 3. It would not be fair, however, to compare such a list with those numerous local floras in which a taxonomic catalogue is the most important feature.
Throughout the catalogue, as well as in other parts of the book, weeds are not distinguished very sharply from native plants, which is unfortunate, though not at all unusual. Weeds are more easily recognized than some persons who have not given the matter much thought may imagine, and a reform in this respect is urgently needed in all our phytogeographical literature.
An extremely conservative course has been followed with re- gard to the numerous recently described (and perhaps ill-defined ?). species of Panicum, Sisyrinchium, Rubus, Crataegus, Viola, etc., the five genera just named having only 56 species among them in the book.
The catalogue comprises 60 pteridophytes, 13 gymnosperms, 384 monocotyledons, and 980 dicotyledons, or 1437 species and varieties of vascular plants. About 28.2 per cent. of the angio- sperms (counting both native and introduced species, for they are not separated) are monocotyledons, which seems to show that the vegetation of Maryland is on the whole considerably nearer the climax condition that that of New Jersey, and farther from it than that of Pennsylvania.
42
In the general index the only persons mentioned are those whose names occur on the first 20 pages. About 75 others, many of whom are shown in the text to have made important contributions to the knowledge of the Maryland flora, are omitted. This perhaps should not be charged up to the authors, however. The botanical index seems to be complete, except for the plants mentioned on pages 86, 87, and 385 (and these are the ones excluded from the state flora), and in the footnotes on page 164 and in the catalogue.*
With the few exceptions here noted, the Plant Life of Maryland is a model of its kind, and it easily ranks among the foremost of existing local phytogeographical works. It is to be hoped that botanists in other states, especially those whose vegetation has not yet been systematically described, will soon follow the splendid example set by Dr. Shreve and his associates.
ROLAND M. HARPER.
Apgar’s Ornamental Shrubs of the United States
In criticising a book we must look at it from the standpoint of the author. The late Mr. Apgar has fully informed us in the preface that his aim has been to produce a work that will reach “that large public who wish to know by name the attractive shrubs cultivated in parks and private grounds, but who are actually afraid of anything called botany.’ Viewed from this frank avowal of its purpose, the little book before us will fill the need of a large number of people who have not an extended knowledge of botany and its terms. What terms the author has found it necessary to use have been fully explained in the first part of the work and in the glossary at the end. The primary classification is based upon the form and position of the leaves, when these are present; or in their absence keys are provided for deciduous-leaved shrubs, and for thorny or spiny
* Although the present work is not a good illustration of the point, it might not be out of place to remark here that indexing is too often regarded as a mere mechanical process, requiring no intelligence or discretion, and delegated by the author to persons who have no interest in his work.
yt Apgar, A. C. Ornamental Shrubs of the United States (Hardy, Cultivated). Pp. 1-352. pl. 1-4. f. 1-621. American Book Co. Price $1.50.
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plants. Flowers and fruits are assigned a secondary place. Part II is devoted to the ‘‘General Opening Key”’ and the “ Keys to the Genera,’’ with instructions as to their use. In Part III are the descriptions of the shrubs, and here a valuable help is offered in the numerous illustrations, made by the author himself, in which he has indicated what are considered the essential char- acters.
The little work must not be viewed from the scientific stand- point, for the author makes no claim along this line. Considered from the point of view of the author, and of that large class who desire merely to know the names of shrubs, this little volume will be of great use.
GEORGE V. NASH.
A recent investigation of the sargasso sea was undertaken by Dr. John J. Stevenson. He says (Science, December 9, 1910) that the ‘‘indefinite descriptions of the area and mass of seaweed, as well as the extraordinary statements made by some authors in discussing the origin of coal, induced the writer to make an examination of the conditions for himself. The matter is easy, because the steamship route between Barbadoes and the Azores crosses the area diagonally and passes very near the center.” His own observations, and the information gained from officers who had crossed the sargasso sea many times, lead him to think that ‘‘much depends on the time of year, for weed appears to accumulate while the trades are mild and to be broken up later in the season when the strength of the winds increases. In any case, however, the weed occupies only a small part of the area, the patches being separated by wide spaces of clear water, almost free from weed. Many of the bunches show unmistakably that they had been attached to rock; and the plants have traveled far, since in a large proportion of bunches only a part is living, the dead parts being of a brownish color.’”’ It is evidently un- usual to find a patch exceeding a half acre in extent. In passing through the Bahamas the seaweed is found to be ‘ abundant than along either of the lines followed across the sar- gasso. The weed is evidently the same, being in circular bunches
“much more
44
up to 18 inches diameter arranged in strips according with the direction of the wind, though occasionally in bands or even in patches 8 by to feet. The patches are near the large islands.”’
Mr. Stevenson feels that “At best, the quantity of weed seen at any locality is wholly insignificant. Midway in the sargasso sea, the bunches seen in a width of a mile would form, if brought into contact, a strip not more than 65 feet wide. This, where the weed is most abundant. But the bunches are very loose, the plant material, as was estimated, occupying less than one fifth of the space, so that if the bunches were brought together so that the plant parts would be in contact, each square mile would yield a strip not more than 13 feet wide and 3 or 4 inches thick, or barely 2,500 cubic yards to the square mile. . . . The accumula- tion of decayed vegetable material from seaweeds must be com- paratively unimportant under the sargasso sea; and what there is would be merely foreign matter in mineral deposits.”’
J. B.
PROCERDINGS, Of THb CLUB NOVEMBER 30, IQI1O
This meeting was held at the New York Botanical Garden. Nineteen persons were present. Vice-president Barnhart occu- pied the chair.
The minutes of the meeting of November 8 were read and approved. Dr. W. D. Hoyt, of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., was proposed for membership.
The first paper of the announced scientific program was by Dr N. £. Britton om the Flora ot Pinan del Rio, Guibas Dr Britton gave an account of his recent botanical explorations in this province of Cuba in company with Mrs. Britton, Professor F. S$. Earle, and Professor C. Stuart Gager. After a sketch of the earlier botanical explorations of Cuba by Charles Wright and others, the general floral features of the province of Pinar del Rio were described and many specimens were exhibited. An account of this work is published in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden for October.
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The second paper on ‘‘Thistle Hybrids from the Rocky Moun- tains’’ was by Dr. P. A. Rydberg. The speaker exhibited speci- mens of nineteen supposed hybrids in the genus Carduus, to- gether with their putative parents. The evidences of hybridity were drawn from intermediate morphological characters, sup- ported in most cases by close association in nature with the supposed parents. Descriptions of these Carduus hybrids were published in the Bulletin for November.
Adjournment followed. MARSHALL A. Howe,
Secretary pro tem.
DECEMBER 13, I9IO
The meeting was called to order at the American Museum of Natural History at 8:30 p.M. Tuesday, December 13, Ig10, with President Rusby in the chair. One hundred people were present.
After the reading and approval of the minutes of November 30, 1910, Dr. W. D. Hoyt, Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., and Miss Jessie P. Rose, Crystal, Oregon, were elected to membership.
The resignations of Prof. Henry Kraemer, Dr. Raymond H. Pond, and Mrs. L. Schéney were read and accepted.
The scientific program consisted of an illustrated lecture by Dr. Marshall A. Howe on ‘‘A Visit to the Panama Canal Zone.”
The visit described by the speaker occurred in December, 1909, and January, 1910, and was undertaken under the auspices of the New York Botanical Garden, with the special object of studying and comparing the marine floras of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, here within less than fifty miles of each other.
The marine algae proving unexpectedly scarce, especially on the Pacific side of the Isthmus, there was considerable oppor- tunity for taking photographs of general botanical interest and the lantern-slides shown illustrated chiefly some of the more striking features of the land flora of the Canal Zone, such as the numerous native palms, the vegetation of the extensive fresh-water swamps between Colon and Gatun, the swampy forests bordering the
46
Chagres River, and the flora of the rocky islands of Panama Bay, A report covering some of these features of the lecture was published in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden for February, 1910.
The speaker justified a somewhat extended discussion of the Panama Canal and its history by the general interest in the subject both here and on the Isthmus. Among the photographs shown were several of the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Canal, the Gatun locks, a flood on the Chagres River, the Culebra Cut, the Ancon Hospital, and the Taboga Sanitarium. The success of modern sanitary methods in combatting yellow fever and malaria was especially dwelt upon. The speaker alluded also to incidents of interest in the romantic early history of the Isthmus and in the building of the Panama Railroad. Photo- graphs of the ruins of Old Panama, located about five miles east of the present city, were also shown.
Adjournment followed. SERENO STETSON,
Secretary pro tem.
OF INTEREST TO TEACHERS*
COLLEGE BotANy NOTES
An interesting set of sheets giving some of the directions for freshman and sophomore botany has been provided us by Pro- fessor Clements of the University of Minnesota. Drawings form quite a prominent part of the work as might be expected. It is directed that the drawings be drawn to scale—a thing which is more important than most of us realize. The following recom- mendation is also made: “‘As a rule, write the answers to the questions first, and make the drawings afterward.” The pro- cedure is often exactly the opposite, with the result that the drawing shows but indifferently the characteristics of the plant parts under consideration. Structure and function are too often too widely separated—in time at least—even in general courses in botany. In the work on plant cells and tissues given below
* Conducted by Miss Jean Broadhurst, Teachers College, Columbia University.
47
one can see clearly that very different drawings would be made before and after answering the questions.
1. Cell and protoplasm (Lat., cella, room: Gr., protos, first plasma form).
(a) Mount a leaf of the water weed, Philotria. Note the structure of the cell, the position of the green bodies, chloroplasts, and especially the movement of the protoplasm. Compare various cells.
(6) Mount a stamen of the spiderwort, Tvadescantia, taking care not to crush it. Note the structure of the stamen-hair, and especially the streams of protoplasm and the nucleus.
Answer the following questions definitely but briefly: (1) Explain the different shapes of the cells. (2) What indicates that the wall is elastic? (3) Do the streams of protoplasm change their shape, position, or direction? (4) What forms the ‘“‘banks”’ of the streams? (5) Find the rate of flow. (6) Does the protoplasm pass from one cell to the next? (7) How and why does it line the cell wall? (8) Explain the position and shape of the nucleus. (9) Does the nucleus move? If it does, explain how. (10) Do the streams center at it? Do they flow into it or over it? (11) What fills the bulk of the cell? Draw to scale a cell of Philotria, showing the wall and chloro- plasts; draw a cell of the stamen-hair, showing wall, streams of protoplasm, nucleus, etc.
Almost all of the work is carried on in the field and green- house. Lectures and books are replaced by independent labora- tory (in the widest sense) work by the students. It means time, patience, and real teaching power on the part of the in- structors if the students are to solve for themselves the problems of physiology and work out the structural adaptation to function. It is also felt at the University of Minnesota that the students are more interested by and in work of this type than by the usual method of lectures, and text and reference books.
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The beneficial effects of soil,bacteria have lately received much emphasis. The Outlook notes popularly the recent investigation of injurious soil bacteria—(October 29, 1910) at the experiment station at Rothamsted, England. ‘‘It occurred to the experi- menters at Rothamsted that perhaps there exist similarly in the soil, not only the “‘good”’ microbes that can be reinforced at will, but ‘““bad”’ organisms that, as in the human system, are at warfare with the benefactors. And this was demonstrated to be a fact. Perhaps, then, they thought, we can not only reinforce the helpful organisms by addition from without, but treat the soil with something that will kill or minimize the effect of those undesirable. Isolating the organisms and experimenting with them, it was soon found that various antiseptics, in liquid and in vapor form, will kill or paralyze the undesirable organisms, and hence, if applied to soils, materially increase their yield, even without a reinforcement of the army of their natural enemies, the ammonia-forming bacteria; and at length it was discovered that heat alone will answer every purpose. Partial sterilization of the soil by heat, while destroying some of the desirable bacteria, totally destroys those that prey upon them. Cans of earth from the same field heated to about the temperature of boiling water yield enormous growths of leaf and seed compared with identical samples unheated. Here is the sign-post that points to a most fascinating path of research. Perhaps some way will be found to apply this discovery practically. Experiment will not rest here, although it seems at first thought impossible to heat the soil over any large area; yet in greenhouses it might pay, where the area under cultivation is relatively small and the crop rela- tively very valuable. A lady of our acquaintance found it im- ~° possible to grow certain flowers in a pot; the seeds germinated, but the plants failed to mature. Thinking that there might be some worm or grub in the soil that attacked the seeds or the roots, and that heat might kill it, and as fresh soil was not easy to secure in the city, she put the pot in the oven and baked the contents. Afterwards there was no trouble when the seeds were again planted. She had unconsciously confirmed the Rotham- sted experiment, destroying the harmful bacteria. Professor
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Hall, the writer of the article which is the subject of this review, concludes as follows, after admitting the difficulty of applying this remedy on a large scale: ‘“‘Sooner or later, our trials will reach a cheap and practical issue. But if we do succeed, we shall have added one more to the number of new discoveries which are as old as time: Virgil in his Georgies describes the advantages to be obtained by mixing the surface soil with weeds and rubbish and burning it gently, and the practice is still followed among the native cultivators in India.” This, Mr. Hall
é
concludes means a warfare “‘against an invisible population, of which the very existence was unsuspected a generation ago.” And the results are due to the killing of “unsuspected groups of large organisms of the protozoan class, which feed upon living bacteria,’’ and heating or treatment by antiseptics relieves the bacteria which partially escape the treatment from their attack, allowing them to increase to an enormous degree, with a corre- sponding rise in ammonia production—and therefore of fertility.
— Science, September 16, 1909.
The October Journal of the New York Botanical Garden contains an article by George V. Nash on ‘‘Winter Decorative Shrubs.”’ Over thirty such shrubs are listed with brief descriptions. School grounds are usually planted with summer decorative shrubs, and are consequently not at their best during the greater part of the school year. It is possible to use winter shrubs in such a way as to add to the summer display, and yet leave a well- balanced and pleasing scheme during the winter.
A recent paper by Alma G. Stokey on Lycopodium pithyoides notes the fact that in this species the sporangia are cauline rather than folia, through continued inequality in the rate of growth which causes it eventually to take a “‘ position on the stem entirely distinct from the leaf.”
The Japanese are going to replace the cherry trees presented to Mrs. Taft by Japan to adorn the Potomac Drive at Wash- ington, and which had to be destroyed on arrival because they were infected by insects.
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NEWS ITEMS
We learn from the Ottawa Evening Journal of January 19 details of the remarkable expedition of Mr. J. M. Macoun, naturalist of the Geological Survey of Canada. He left Halifax on July 2d, reached Churchill on the twenty-fifth and after botanizing for a month in that vicinity started north. Sailing up Hudson Bay, in the steamer “Jeannie” the party reached Wager Inlet, which is almost on the Artic Circle, and here on the evening of September 5th the vessel was wrecked in a storm. The party rigged up two small boats, rescued from the “ Jeannie,”’ and succeeded in reaching Fullerton, about 150 miles south- ward, in two and a half days. From Fullerton to Churchill it is 450 miles and they made this part of the return trip in a whaler. Finding it impossible to stop at Churchill on account of scarcity of food the party traveled 800 miles overland by snow shoes and sledges to Gimli in Manitoba, a small town on the southerly end of Lake Winnipeg. Here they were within reach of civilization. The botanical specimens were all saved and will prove of much interest as ‘‘before no botanist had been on the west coast of Hudson Bay between Churchill and Repulse Bay.’ At the latter place all the species areearctic. No lives were lost and no one was seriously injured.
The American Fern Society has elected the following officers for 1911: President, Philip Dowell; Vice-president, Miss Nellie Mirick; Treasurer, H. G. Rugg; and Secretary, L. S. Hopkins.
In honor of Prof. L. R. Jones, formerly of the University of Vermont, and now professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin, a 450-acre reserve in Vermont has been named the ““L. R. Jones State Forest.’’
During February and March several hundred orchids will be in flower at the New York Botanical Garden. The collection includes many interesting and rare species from all parts of the world.
The editor of TorreEyA has accepted the position of Curator of Plants at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the appointment to take effect March 16, 1911.
“we
The Torrey Botanical Club
Contributors of accepted articles and reviews who wish six gratuitous copies of the number of TorreyAin which their papers appear, will kindly notify the editor when submitting manuscript.
Reprints should be ordered, when galley proof is returned to the editor, from The New Era Printing Co., 41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa., who have furnished the following rates :
2pp App 8pp 12pp 16pp 20pp 25 copies $ .75 $1.05 $1.30 $1.80 $2.20 $2.50 50 copies -90 1.20 1.70 2.20 2.50 2.85 100 copies 1.15 1.55 1.95 2.55 2.90 3.20
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The following Committees have been appointed for 1911
Finance Committee Field Committee J. 1. Kane, Chairman E. B: Soutuwick, Chairman _H. M. Ricuarps Wm. MANSFIELD N. TAyLor
Budget Committee Program Committee H. H. Russy, Chairman Mrs. E. G. Britton, Chairman J. H. Barnuart Miss JEAN BROADHURST N. L. Britton yes TRACY EW HAZEN E. S. BurGEss PF. J;-SEAVER B. O. Dover :
Puitie DowELL
Local Flora Com mittee
N. L. Brirron, Chairman
Phanerogams: Cryptogams: E.-P. BicKNELL Mrs. E. G. Brirron N. L. Britrron PHitie DOWELL
E. S. BurGess Tracy E) Hazen C2C Curtis -.- M. A. Howe
K, K. Mackenzie W. A. Morrityi
E. L. Morris
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
‘TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
(1) BULLETIN
u monthly journal .devoted to general boeay, established 1870. Vol. 37 published in 1910, contained 630 pages of text and 36 full-page plates. “ Price $3.00 per annum. For Europe, 14 shillings. Dulau & Co., 37 Soho Square, London, are, agents for England. ! Of former volumes, only 24-37 can be Supphed entire ; cer- tain numbers of other volumes are available, but the entire aoe of some numbers has been reserved for the completion of sets. Vols. 24-27 are furnished at the published pues of two dollars each ; Vols. 28-37 three dollars each, ) See copies (30 cents), will be furnished only shen not | breaking complete volumes. Coan }
a. MEMOIRS The Memoirs, established 1889, are published at seve ulay
intervals. Volumes 1— 13 are now completed: Nos. 1 and 2 of —
Vol. 14 have been issued. The) subscription price is fixed at $3.00 per volume in advance. The numbers can also be pur- chased singly. A list of titles of the individual papers and of prices will be furnished on application, Be a (3) The Preliminary Catalogue of Anthophyta and Pteri-
_ dophyta reported as growing within one hundred miles ety New York, 1888. Price, $1.00. |
Correspondence relating to the above publications should be addressed to | : MR. BERNARD 0. DODGE
Galisaibie Wave ay
New York City
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MMOL TY: se: ~ March, 1911 No. 3
ORREYA
A -Monruty JourNaL or BoTaANIcAL Nores AND News
EDITED FOR
THE: TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
BY
NORMAN TAYLOR
sn JOHN TORREY, 1796-1873 : CONTENTS : The Clogging of Dein. Tile by Roots, G. E, STONE-..., PE ks ee, 51 The Nature and Fongtion of the Plant Oxidases : PRNESTD), “CLARE ae. ok. 55 May Method of Making Leaf Prints: EDwArp W. BERRY............0.. Ba faass Syinde= aah “62 -_A New Plum from the Lake Region of Florida: “ROWLAND M, HARPER............. 64% Proceedings of the Club... .i.....c:..csers.seecens tees sarc t aaeanraret END A or Say Rad cates 68. Of Interest to Teachers...... an ees ects SE Rip ee Se Ae POR ance ee mae ne ole aria eezo™ PAN CWS TECHIS 5 Soo ole ies seein vextem eee ts Re NAR aan, Cast ete Peek 8 HE ees 75
PUBLISHED ‘FOR THE CLUB » AT 41 Nortu Queen STREET, LANCASTER, PA. BY THE New Era PrRinrinc Company
Entered at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pa: » as second-class’ matter. Jie
‘THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
OFFICERS FOR 1911
President HENRY H. RUSBY, M.D.
> Vice- Presidents EDWARD S. BURGESS, PH.D. JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A.M., M.D
Secretary and Treasurer
BERNARD O. DODGE, Ph.B. Columbia University, New York City |
Liditor _ PHILIP DOWELL, Pu.D.
Associate Editors
JOHN H. BARNHART, A.M., M.D. TRACY ELLIOT HAZEN, Pu.D.
JEAN BROADHURST, A.M. ~ MARSHALL AVERY HOWE, Px.D, ERNEST D. CLARK, Pu.D. HERBERT M. RICHARDS, S.D.
ALEX. W. EVANS, M.D., PH.D. NORMAN TAYLOR
Torreya is furnished to subscribers in the United States and Canada for one dollar per annum; single copies, fifteen cents. To subscribers elsewhere, five shillings, or the equivalent thereof. Postal or express money orders and drafts or personal checks on New York City banks are accepted in payment, but the rules of the New York Clearing House compel the request that ten cents be added to the amount of any other local checks that may be sent. Subscriptions are received only for full volumes, beginning with the January issue. Reprints will be furnished at cost prices. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to TREASURER, TORREY Botanical Cius, 41 North Queen St., Lan- caster, Pa., or Columbia University, New York City. —
_ Matter for publication should be addressed to
NORMAN TAYLOR Central Museum, Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y.
TORREY A
March, IgI1I Vol. 11 No. 3
THe CLOGGING OF DRAIN TILE BY ROOTS By G. E. STONE
Quite frequently trouble is experienced from roots of various trees entering drain tile, sewers, etc., and this often causes much vexation, labor and expense. The Carolina poplar, which is often planted as a shade tree in cities, frequently becomes a nuisance in consequence of its peculiar habit of working its roots through the joints of tile used for sewerage, etc. It is a com- paratively easy matter for roots to gain entrance into the un- cemented joints of tile, and even when tile is cemented they often manage to crowd in and fill the tile with a mass of roots which eventually clog the tile and render it useless. Instances are even known of roots penetrating sewers constructed of brick and cement. The roots of other trees besides Carolina poplars are known to be offenders in this respect. Willows, elms and others are responsible for considerable clogging of tile, and grass
roots will in a comparatively short time put out of commission
the most effective drain. There are also many instances of even fungi and algae clogging up small drains. The writer some years ago had called to his attention a case of Oscillatoria constantly clogging tile, much to the annoyance of the landowner; and, is also familiar with a case where the drain tile underlying the steam conduit of a central heating and distributing plant was con- tinually being clogged by root growth. The joints of the six- inch Akron tile underlying the steam heating pipes were not cemented and were four or five feet below the surface. In two or three years after the tile were laid some of them had become clogged with elm tree roots. This clogging prevented the water from flowing through the tile and caused a dam, as it were, resulting in the water flowing back into the conduit and flooding
[No 2, Vol. 11, of TORREYA, comprising pp. 23-50, was issued 14 F 1o11.]
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the steam pipes which greatly interfered with their efficiency. It is necessary, of course, to leave the joints of Akron tile open . when used for the purpose of draining the conduit trench since these pipes must take off the water from the trench and prevent it from coming into contact with the steam pipes in the conduit. As long as the joints remain open it is with great difficulty that the roots of trees, etc., are kept from growing in the tile, and sooner or later it is made ineffective.
Tree roots will penetrate tile protected with carefully cemented joints and become a nuisance, as is shown by the following in- stance. In the city of Newark, N. J., the Shade Tree Commis- sion have been requested by the Department of Sewers and Drainage to omit the planting of Carolina poplars on streets since the roots of these trees proved to be a nuisance to drains. Mr. Edward S. Rankin,* Engineer of Sewers and Drainage of the city of Newark, writes as follows:
‘Replying to your letter of the twentieth inst., we find that the roots go through the joints of tile pipe even when carefully cemented and the trouble seems to be increasing. In 1909 we had 15 stoppages caused by roots; for the first 11 months of 1910, 23, of which 5 occurred in the month of November. These stoppages were all in house connections, and in addition to these we have also had a number of cases in our main pipe sewers. The roots after penetrating the pipe seem to spread out and practically fill the whole pipe. I have no way of knowing how long a time it takes for these roots to grow. To the best of my knowledge we have had no trouble with any of our brick sewers. The trouble seems to have been caused in all cases by poplar trees.”’
There recently came to our attention a notable case of a large drain tile being clogged by the roots of a pear tree. This tile was 12 inches in diameter and was laid about seven years ago to take the seepage waters from a reservoir located in the town of Belmont, Mass. The pipe passed near a pear orchard, and there was a constant flow of water through it summer and winter, although it was never full. At the time the tile was laid the joints were not cemented, and of course there was an opportunity
* See also Municipal Journal and Engineer, vol. 30, no. 1, January 4, I9QIl.
5d
for roots of various kinds, if so disposed, to penetrate the joints of the pipe and secure an abundant supply of water. During November, 1909, about seven years after the drain pipe was installed, it became necessary to dig up a large part of it on account of its inefficiency and replaceit. It was found on digging up this tile that it was badly congested by a profuse root growth. A careful examination of the location showed that this growth
Fic. 1.—Showing pear tree root taken from drain tile.
of roots originated from a single off-shoot of a pear tree located some seven feet away. This enormous mass of pear roots was removed from the tile and carefully laid aside and at our request was presented to our museum, with full data concerning it. The roots were found to measure 61 feet in length. Only a single root entered the tile, it having a diameter of about five- eighths of an inch inside the tile, but where it entered the tile it was somewhat flattened out. The root, on entering the tile, subdivided into innumerable rootlets, and these were again di- vided into countless smaller roots. At the time the tile was
54
dug up and the roots removed the drain had been in operation seven years, although a cross-section of the root and an examina- tion of the annular rings where it entered the tile, showed that it was only five years old. It required, therefore, only five years for this mass of roots to clog up a 12-inch tile.
The maximum diameter of this mass of roots in the dry state is six or seven inches, but when alive and flourishing in the tile its diameter exceeded this. The roots as they reached the laboratory had a decidedly bad odor, showing that if no sewage was present in the tile there was certainly a considerable amount of organic matter in the seepage derived from the soil or some other source which proved of value as plant food. Soon after the specimens arrived at this laboratory they were spread out on the floor and measured. This was done by laying out on the floor sections five feet in length. The number of roots in each five-foot section was counted. These were multiplied by the length of the section and the whole tabulated (see table). The total length of these roots was 8,498 feet, as shown in the table, which is equal to 1.61 miles. Adding to this the numerous small roots which range from a few to several inches in length and which were not considered in our section count, the total length was estimated to be over two miles.
This enormous development from a single root cf a pear tree is greatly in excess of what would take place if the roots were
TABLE SHOWING THE GROWTH OF PEAR TREE ROOTS IN DRAIN TILE
No. of Section. Length of Section. Moues Rots ux ate eee m it 5 ft. 34 170 ft. 2 5 4I 205 3 5 73 365 4 5 153 765 5 5 199 995 6 5 313 1565 7 5 373 1865 8 5 447 2235 9 5) 141 795 a0) 5 53 2605 iit 5 31 155 12 5 36 180 13 I 28 28 Total ope 1922 8498
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in the soil, since the conditions of the drain tile stimulate root development very materially. However, the root system of any tree or shrub is far in excess in length and area of what the lay- man imagines. The profuse growth of roots in water is also seen in cases where old wells become filled with root growth, but the pear tree root in question is one of the best examples which has ever come to our notice of root development in drain tile.
MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS.
ie NATURE SAND hUNCHION OF THE, PLANT OXIDASES
By Ernest D. CLARK]
(Continued from February Torreya)
PEROXIDASE
Besides the laccase and tyrosinase which we have been con- sidering, there are other oxidizing enzymes which are not specific like the two mentioned. They act only in the presence of hydro- gen peroxide, and therefore are called peroxidases. These en- zymes have also been called ‘indirect oxidases’’ in distinction from those substances (Bach’s oxygenases) which show their activity without the addition of peroxide as in the case of tyro- sinase, etc. In 1903, Bach and Chodat™ discovered that by fractional precipitation of aqueous extracts of Lactarius vellereus, they were able to obtain two precipitates of very different prop- erties. The fraction insoluble in 40 per cent. alcohol proved to be a direct oxidase, while the other fraction, soluble in 40 per cent. alcohol, but insoluble’in 95 per cent. alcohol, had no direct oxidizing properties. With hydrogen peroxide and other perox- ides, however, the second fraction showed strikingly peroxidase properties. Moreover, the peroxidase fraction, when allowed to act with the direct oxidase fraction, showed all the properties of
15 Bach and Chodat. Title of series is: Untersuchungen iiber die Rolle der Per- oxyde in der Chemie der lebenden Zellen; V. Zerlegung der sogenannte Oxydasen in Oxygenasen und Peroxydasen. Ber. Chem. Gesell. 36: 606. 1903.
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the original oxidizing substance as present in the plant. This research was the beginning of.a series of notable contributions to our knowledge of the oxidizing enzymes. In another paper, _ these authors state that peroxidase is present in nearly every plant. They were able to prepare a pure peroxidase from the horse- radish root, which exhibited great stability towards heat. In further comparative studies they showed that peroxidase great y augments the power of the natural oxidases, especially that oxy- genase from the same source as the peroxidase itself. All of these observations led Bach and Chodat to separate oxidases into two parts, the organic peroxide part, which they called ‘“‘oxyge- nase’’ and the activator of oxygenase and other peroxides, to which alone they gave the name “ peroxidase.” |
Kastle and Loevenhart" in 1901 published a very important paper which has not always received due attention from the European chemists engaged in this work. These authors found that the substance bluing guaiacum directly is easily precipitated by alcohol and is destroyed by small amounts of hydrocyanic acid, hydroxyl amine and phenyl hydrazine. It seemed peculiar to them that these substances should be so harmful, but that sodium hyposulphite, silver nitrate and mercuric chloride, sub- stances usually fatal to enzymes, should exert little effect on the constituent of the potato which blues guaiacum directly. In general, those substances which prevented the direct bluing of guaiac tincture by the potato juice also prevented similar action upon guaiacum by the organic and inorganic peroxides with which they experimented. All of these experiments caused them to believe that this direct bluing was not due to enzymes at all, but to organic peroxides which were formed when the juice is exposed to the air, according to Engler’s theories of auto-oxida- tion. Thus we see, the idea that oxidases are made up of an organic peroxide part activated by the enzyme peroxidase receives further confirmation from this work of Kastle and Loevenhart.
In a valuable paper by Kastle!” on “The Stability of the
16Kastle and Loevenhart. On the Nature of Certain Oxidizing Ferments. Amer. Chem. Jour. 26: 539. Igot. :
7 Kastle. On the Stability of the Oxidases, etc. Bull. 26, Hyg. Lab. U.S. Pub. Health and Mar. Hosp. Serv. Washington, 1906.
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d
Oxidases,’’ it appears that oxygenases of certain fungi are ex- tremely resistant to the influence of both heat and long standing. In the case of the oxygenase from Lepiota americana, it was necessary to heat for several minutes to a’ temperature of about 85° in order to destroy the power of the extract to blue guaiacum directly. Still more striking is the case of the glycerin extracts of certain Lactarius spp., which after standing from 1905 to 1909 were found to be still active towards ,both guaiacum and tyrosin. It is interesting to note that of the many species of the higher fungi which Kastle tested, only one, Amanita verna, did not show any response for the oxidases. This p'ant is so poisonous that it has been called the ‘“‘destroying angel.”’ From all the experimental work of the different investigators it seems probable that peroxidase is an enzyme rather than a simple catalyzer. Little is really known of the nature of peroxi- dase. Bach'® has prepared a powerful peroxidase which gave no tests for proteins, nor did it contain iron or manganese. On the other hand, Van der Haar™ claims his Hedera oxidase was a glucoprotein. Resistance to heat seems to be a peculiarity of peroxidase. Heating to boiling is necessary to destroy peroxi- dase, while oxygenase is destroyed at a much lower temperature. Bach and Chodat noted this fact and also that upon standing after boiling, the peroxidase regained its activity. Woods” first discovered, this phenomenon while studying the peroxidase of the tobacco leaf, and concluded that in these cases we are dealing with a zymogen or a substance which regenerates the peroxidase upon standing. Aso” also found that there were zymogens more stable towards heat than peroxidase itself, which slowly yielded more of the latter after the destruction of the initial supply. A second heating permanently destroys the peroxidase; the stronger the solution of the enzyme, the more resistant it is towards heat.
18 Bach. Zur Theorie der Oxydasenwirkung: I. Mangan und eisenfreie Oxydasen. Ber. Chem. Gesell. 43: 364. IgI0.
19Van der Haar. Untersuchungen in Pflanzenoxydasen: II. Die Hederaper- oxydase, ein Glucoproteide. Ber. Chem. Gesell. 43: 1321. 1910.
20Woods. The Mosaic Disease of Tobacco. Report No. 18 [p. 17], U. S. Dept. Agric. 1902.
21Aso. Which Compound Can Liberate Iodine from Potassium Iodide? Bei- hefte z. Botan. Centralblt. 15: 208. 1903.
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The writer has also noted cases of the regeneration of the peroxi- dase after its apparent destruction by heat, especially in the case of the oxidase of the sweet-potato. Hasselbring and Als- berg” have recently found that only in the presence of coagulable protein are the oxidases easily destroyed by heat.
With the exception of catalase there is probably no enzyme more common among plants and animals than peroxidase. There is hardly a plant or any part of its organs that does not blue tincture of guaiacum in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, thus proving the presence of peroxidases. The oxidases also play an important part in many industrial processes. The curing of tobacco, the production of the bouquet of wines, and the formation of commercial indigo from Indigofera antl in India, all seem to be somewhat dependent upon the oxidases. Green tea is produced when the freshly picked leaves are immediately spread on hot plates which, of course, destroys the oxidases, while the slow curing with consequent activity of the oxidases yields the black tea of commerce. The aroma of the vanilla- bean and the fragrance of the English meadow-sweet (Ulmaria Ulmaria) have also been attributed to oxidase action. Leptomin is really a peroxidase but Raciborski,”’ finding the indirect oxidase localized in the leptome (phloem) of plants, considered it a new enzyme, and one distinct from the direct ox dase. With guaiacum and hydrogen peroxide the strongest bluing is localized in the phloem through which the sieve-tubes pass, the latter acting as carriers of the food materials of the plant. This so- called leptomin is present in largest amount in the phloem of the latex plants. These illustrations will serve to show the distri- bution and importance of the oxidases in plants.
CATALASE
It has long been known that finely divided metals, blood, plant juices and fluids from the animal body cause the rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. But this fact did not
22 Hasselbring and Alsberg. Studies upon Oxidases [an abstract]. Science Ul, Bus OBZ. WOUO-
*3 Raciborski. Ein Inhalts-korper des Leptoms. Ber. Botan. Gesell. 16: 52. T8098.
Or te)
attract special attention at first because it was generally thought that the power to decompose hydrogen peroxide was a property common to all ferments (enzymes). However, beginning in 1888 with Bergengriin, different investigators discovered that the power to decompose hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water could exist independently of the ordinary activities of such enzymes as the oxidases, diastase, emulsin, etc. Gottstein stated that the power of cells to break up hydrogen peroxide is due to their nucleic acid content and not to any enzyme, and further- more, this power is shown after the death of the cell as well as during life. In 1901, Loew~ found, in his studies on the enzymes of the tobacco leaf, that these leaves often caused a very active evolytion of gas from hydrogen peroxide, but yielded none of the tests for oxidases, protein digesting enzymes, and other enzymes. This led him to study the matter more fully, with the result that by precipitation of the leaf extracts with ammonium sulphate and subsequent purification by alcohol precipitation, he obtained preparations that were extremely active in decomposing hydrogen peroxide, but which had no other property agreeing with the other classes of enzymes, such as the starch digesting action of diastase, etc. He named this substance ‘‘catalase’’ and con- sidered that it was a new enzyme. Loew then made a more careful study of catalase and found that it apparently existed in two forms, a-catalase, which is insoluble in water, and the B-catalase, solublein water. Ina study of its distribution, Loew found that catalase is of practically universal occurrence in both plants and animals, a conclusion fully substantiated by the work of all later investigators. Recent observations made by Apple- man” seem to show that catalase may be separated into a water- soluble and -insoluble portion as was previously claimed by Loew.
Euler* investigated the catalase of the fungus Boletus scaber in a painstaking manner. This catalase proved to be more sensitive to acids than animal preparations, but like them, there seemed to be some connection between the fat content of the
*%4TLoew. Catalase, a New Enzyme of General Occurrence. Report No. 68, U. S. Dept. Agric. toot.
2 Appleman. Some Observations on Catalase. Bot. Gazette 50: 182. 1910.
**Euler. Zur Kenntniss der Katalase. Hofmeister’s Beitrage, 7: 1. 1908.
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fungi and the amount of their catalase. Like the other investi- gators, he found that in dilute solutions and with a relative excess of the enzyme solution, the reaction followed the equation for reactions of the first order, thus tending to show that active oxygen was formed. In some cases he found that the physico- chemical constant k’ equalled 0.0107 at 15°, this value for k’ being identical with that found by Bredig and his collaborators for a colloidal platinum solution containing 0.006 gram of the metal per liter. The enzyme solution used by Euler in this determination con- tained 0.004 gram of enzyme preparation per liter. This enzyme was associated with globulin, but, taking the molecular weight as 1000, while that of platinum is 195, then 0.006/195 N equals the concentration of platinum and 0.004/1000 N equals the concentra- tion of enzyme. This will give one an approximate idea of the tremendous catalytic activity of both of these substances. Not only do colloidal metal solutions and the vegetable catalases act in the same quantitative manner, but they also show the same sensitiveness to chemicals.
It seems likely that there is an antagonistic action between peroxidase and catalase. Shaffer?” found that if uric acid were allowed to stand for several days with hydrogen peroxide solu- tion, it was oxidizéd, but in the presence of catalase and hydrogen peroxide, there was no oxidation of the uric acid. This led Shaffer to believe that the spontaneous decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide results in the formation of traces of active oxygen, while that set free under the influence of catalase is wholly in the molecular (inactive) state. The main point of Shaffer’s publication is that the oxygen set free by catalase is not in a nascent state and therefore catalase may have a certain protective power in the oxidation processes carried on by the cell. Herliztka®® agreed with Shaffer that catalase has a protective action in the presence of peroxides or peroxidases. He also made quantitative studies on the oxidation of guaiacum by peroxidase and found a retarding action in the oxidation whenever catalase
27 Shaffer. Some Observations on the Enzyme Catalase. Am. Jour. Physiol. I4: 209. 1905.
28 Herliztka. Richerche sulla catalasi; Sull’antagonismo tra catalasi e peros- sidasi. Rendic. Accad. Lincei. Atti. V. 162: 493. 1906.
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was present. Bach showed that in a mixture of catalase and peroxidase the latter did not have an appreciable effect upon the action of the catalase. As we shall see in discussing the réle of catalase in the cell, it is possible that it acts as a brake on the processes carried on by the oxidases.
In the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen there has long been a controversy in regard to the nature of the oxygen evolved; that is, whether it is in the active state or in the inactive molecular condition. Now, in the case of catalase we know from the results of Shaffer and others, that no active oxygen is formed in the process, because guaiacum is not blued, and none of the reactionsof nascent oxygen are shown; and furthermore, as Shaffer pointed out, if catalase produced active oxygen in the living cell, the protoplasm would probably be killed at once by this extremely active and destructive agent. How are we to harmonize those of the physico-chemical measure- ments with the results of Shaffer, Liebermann and others? From the physico-chemical data, the oxygen is in an atomic state, while from tests on the reaction mixture, it is apparently in a molecular state! We may say that the greater weight of evidence seems to favor the idea that the oxygen is in the inactive state and not capable of oxidizing directly.
In concluding this short discussion of catalase, we are forced to admit that our knowledge of this subject is very imperfect, and Cohnheim” voiced the thoughts of many investigators when he said: “It may well be that catalase is not an enzyme at all, but that the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide is a function of the large surfaces exposed by colloidal molecules, whether of organized matter or of metals in colloidal solution, the ‘inorganic ferments’ of Bredig.’”°
LABORATORY OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEW YorRK. (To be continued)
*Cohnheim. Lecture at the New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, December 10, 1909.
® Bredig. Die Anorganische Fermente, 19or.
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A METHOD OF MAKING LEAF PRINTS
By EpwArpD W. BERRY
The following method of making prints of leaves while not new has much to recommend it and seems worthy of having attention called to it in print. It has proven by far the most satisfactory which I have utilized during a life-long interest in leaf study. I do not know the original discoverer, nor does it matter particularly. The process was described in the Scientific American a decade ago and more recently Julia E. Rogers* in ‘““A New Method of Knowing our Tree Neighbors” gives an illustrated account of how it is done, crediting her information to W. W. Gillette, of Richmond, Virginia. The process was deemed of sufficient utility to form the subject of one of the Cornell Home Nature Study leaflets some years ago and finally it has been utilized abroad for a number of years for the purpose of furnishing cheap and accurate reproductions in paleobotanical works of existing leaves with which the fossil leaf species were compared.
The necessary outfit is cheap and simple and consists of a small quantity of printers’ ink, a smooth surface eight to ten inches square on which to distribute it, a piece of glass or slate will answer, or astone slab can be purchased from any printers’ supply house for a small sum. Two rollers are needed—one an inking roller such as is used by printers in “pulling” small proofs. This is known technically as a “brayer’’ and various sizes can be purchased at prices ranging from fifty cents upward. I find that a fifty-cent one answers my purposes very well. The other roller is one such as is used in photographic work either of rubber or faced with rubber and costing from thirty-five cents upward. A small bottle of benzine for cleaning purposes is also useful. The process is as follows: A small quantity of ink, a teaspoonful or less, is placed on the slab and rolled to a thin film with the proof roller. Then the leaf is laid on the slab and care- fully rolled with the same roller until a thin film of the ink uniformly coats both sides. The leaf is then placed between
* Country Life in America 18: 66, 88. Igto.
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two sheets of paper and rolled with the photographie roller, care being taken that the pressure be uniform and the paper be not allowed to slip or wrinkle. The result is an accurate and artistic print of both surfaces of the leaf, which should be allowed to become thoroughly dry before handling as the thick
Fic. 1.—1 and 2. Quercus Chapmani. 3 and 4. Quercus myrtifolia.
ink offsets and rubs for several hours. These prints when well done can be used for the making of line or half-tone cuts or the same process could be used in making transfers for lithographic
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purposes. The various advantages of this process are obvious. As a means of interesting both young and old in becoming acquainted with the trees of their neighborhood this method has no equal and need not be dwelt upon in the present connec- tion. As an aid to paleobotanical work it is also extremely useful. It is not necessary to dry the leaves as fresh ones answer equally well, although dried leaves from the herbarium give equally good prints if they are reasonably flat and not too brittle. The prints show both surfaces as the result of a single operation and the varying appearance of the vascular system on the two surfaces is especially valuable for comparison with fossil leaf impressions. From fifty to one hundred can be made within an hour and with a little practise the results are uniformly excellent. The accompanying illustrations are chosen to show this feature although these particular prints are much less artistic than dozens of other leaf species which might have been selected. The upper figures show the upper and under print of a leaf of Quercus Chapmani while the lower figures show the corresponding surfaces of a leaf of Quercus myrtifolia, both oaks of our extreme southern states.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.
A NEW PLUM FROM THE LAKE REGION OF” FLORIDA
By RoLAnD M. HARPER
The lake region of Florida,* which was scarcely known to botanists before the researches of Mr. George V. Nash in 1894,7 has yielded a rich harvest of plants new to science, probably at least 75 species, about half of which are not at present known outside of this region. By far the greater number of these were discovered in the central part of Lake County by Mr. Nash in the year named, and many of them were described by him.
* The boundaries and most striking characteristics of this region have been indicated by the writer in Ann. Rep. Fla. Geol. Surv. 3: 223-224. pl. 16. IgIt. +See Bull. Torrey Club 22: 141-161. 1895.
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During the present century very little collecting has been done in this region, but its botanical possibilities are by no means exhausted.
In the southern part of Lake County, especially just west of Lake Apopka, is an area of several square miles characterized by high sandy hills, sometimes known as mountains,* which Mr. Nash never saw. Like most other parts of the lake region, this area is dotted with small lakes, and contains no streams or valleys, and rocks are conspicuous by their absence. The hills under consideration differ from other hills of the region chiefly in being higher and steeper, the summits of some of them being perhaps 150 feet above the lakes at their bases. They are believed by some people to be the highest elevations in Florida, but their altitudes above sea-level have probably never been accurately determined. The vegetation of these hills is uniformly of the “high pine land”’ type described by Mr. Nash in the paper cited, with the addition of a few species more characteristic of the ‘‘scrub,’’ such as Ceratiola and Selaginella, and a few very local species such as Polygala Lewtonii and the shrub presently to be described. The forests have scarcely been touched by civilization, the greater part of them not even having experienced the ravages of the turpentine industry.
On Feb. 19, 1909, just before dark, I first saw these hills from a train on the Tavares & Gulf R. R., which winds about their bases close to Lake Apopka for several miles, and is probably the crookedest railroad in Florida. The next day I walked southward on this railroad from Tavares, the county-seat of Lake County, and reached the northern edge of the hills about ten miles from Tavares and five or six from West Apopka. Almost immediately upon entering the hill country my attention was attracted to some low diffusely branched plum bushes, some of them in full bloom and leafless, and others a little more advanced, with very young leaves and fruit. The bushes were not more than two feet tall, on the average, and about the same in diameter, with branches exceedingly numerous, decidedly
*The most comprehensive description of these hills that I know of, and the one which first called my attention to them, is in Tenth Census U.S. 6: 237. 1884.
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zigzag — somewhat as in Malapoenna geniculata — and inclined to be spinescent, as in several other species of plums. The flowers were a centimeter or less in diameter, very short-pedi- celled, and arranged in few-flowered sessile umbels, much like those of Prunus angustifolia.
At this time I had no collecting apparatus with me, and was not going to be back in Tavares for several hours, so that there © was no way of preserving any specimens which would be recog- nizable; and nearly two months elapsed before I had another opportunity to visit this interesting region. On the morning of April 17 I approached the same group of hills from the southwest side, leaving the same railroad at Minneola; and on some of the highest hills about half way between Minneola and West Apopka (which are about four miles apart in a straight line and ten miles by rail) I found my new plum again in abundance. (I had had glimpses of it two days before from a train between Killarney and Minneola.). The leaves were of course full-grown by this time, and the largest had blades about 2.5 cm. long and petioles about a third of that length. Some were very much smaller, but the average dimensions were probably about three-fourths of the maximum. All were oblong, about twice as long as wide, minutely mucronate at the apex, with finely crenate-serrate margins, and most of them were aggregated on very short peg- like branchlets in the manner of many other woody plants of the Rosaceae and allied families. The drupes, although still green, must have been full-grown or very nearly so, and they were prac- tically indistinguishable from those of Prunus angustifolia at the same season. They were about 22 mm. long and 18 mm. in diameter, on stout pedicels about 3 mm. long.
At this time I photographed one of the largest bushes, which was about four feet tall and well loaded with fruit, and made several herbarium specimens from it. Wishing to ascertain the size, color, taste, etc., of the ripe fruit, I revisited the place on the twentieth of the following month, but was too late for it that season. A diligent search failed to reveal a single fruit or even a shriveled remnant of one, not even on the same bush which had furnished my specimens a few weeks before. On May
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18, 1910, I came across several specimens of the same plant on somewhat similar high sandy hills about 35 miles farther south, near Haines City, Polk County, but was again too late for fruit.
This peculiar little Prunus seems to have its nearest relative— in the eastern United States at least—in P. angustifolia Marsh. (P. Chicasa Mx.), a large shrub or small tree whose favorite habitat is old fields and fence-rows in regions where agriculture has been practiced for a generation or two at least. The native home of P. angustifolia, if it has any, is not definitely known, but is supposed to be somewhere west of the Mississippi River.* The new species differs from P. angustifolia in being much smaller in almost every way except its fruit, in its diffuse habit and crooked branches, its short pedicels, and especially in being confined to a very limited area of very poor soil, which may not be cultivated for several decades to come.
The description given above, although incomplete in several particulars, and not arranged in conventional order, will be amply sufficient to enable any one to recognize the plant in the field. Several more seasons may elapse before I have a chance to collect flowers and ripe fruit, and it seems best to give the plant a name without further delay, so that it can be mentioned in descriptions of Florida vegetation. I therefore propose to call it Prunus geniculata. Specimens collected at the time and place above mentioned have been distributed as no. 31 of my Florida plants, and have been pronounced undescribed by all systematists who have examined them.
I have recently been informed that there is in the Gray Her- barium a flowering specimen of the same species, collected in March, 1889, by Otto Vesterlund near Killarney, which is on the southwest side of Lake Apopka, where the Tavares & Gulf R. R. crosses the ‘‘Orange Belt’’ division of the Atlantic Coast Line, a few miles southeast of West Apopka.
*For notes on its supposed origin, present habitat, etc., see Michaux, FI. Bor. Am. 1: 284-285. 1803; Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 332. 1814; Nuttall, Genera 1: 302. 1818; Elliott, Bot. S.C. & Ga. 1: 542. 1821; Sargent, Tenth Census U. S. 9: 66. 1884; Silva N. A. 4: 25-26. 1892; Mohr, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6: 551. 1901; Harper, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 17: 115, 228. 1906; Bull. Torrey Club 35: 350. 1908.
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB JANUARY I0, IQII
The first meeting of the Club for 1911 was held at the American Museum of Natural History, beginning at 8:25 P.M., President . Rusby in the chair. There were nineteen persons present. Dr. C. A. Darling, of the department of botany, Columbia Univer- sity, was nominated for membership.
This being the annual meeting, reports were presented by the various officers.
The report of the Treasurer was presented and upon motion referred to an auditing committee.
The Secretary reported that fifteen meetings had been held during the year with a total attendance of 467, as against 411 in 1909, and an average attendance of thirty-one, as against twenty-seven last year. Twelve persons have been elected to membership, and eight resignations received and accepted. Six illustrated lectures were delivered during the season at which the combined attandance was 319, as against 251 at seven meet- ings last year.
The Editor reported that the Bulletin for the year 1910 con- tains 630 pages and 36 plates, and that the expense of its publica- tion was less than the amount allowed for it by the Budget Committee. He also reported that only one paper had been published in the Memoirs, this being a paper by Dr. O. Butler on The Californian Vine Disease. The Editor declined to be considered for reélection. His detailed report is appended.
The Editor of TorrEYA presented a special report for that periodical. The volume of TorrEyA for 1910 contaifie@, 292 pages.
The chairman of the Field Committee reported that twenty- three meetings were advertised during the year, one of which was an afternoon lecture at the New York Botanical Garden. Eight meetings were not held on account of stormy weather or from other causes. At the fourteen field meetings actually held there was a total of 103 persons present, making an average attendance of a little more than seven at each meeting.
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As chairman of the Local Flora Committee, Dr. N. L. Britton gave a brief report of the investigat’ons being carried on Ly Mr. Norman Taylor on the local flora.
Election of officers for the year 1911 resulted as follows:
President, H. H. Russy.
Vice-presidents, EDWARD S. BurGEss and JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART.
Secretary and Treasurer, BERNARD O. DODGE.
Editor, PH1iLiep DOWELL.
Associate Editors, JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, JEAN BRoap- HURST, ERNEST DUNBAR CLARK, ALEXANDER WILLIAM EVANS, Tracy ELLiot Hazen, MarsHALL AVERY Howr, HERBERT MAvLE RIcHARDS and NORMAN TAYLOR.
The following committees were appointed by the President for the year I9QI1:
Finance Committee, JOHN I. KANE, H. M. RICHARDs.
Program Commiitee, ELIZABETH G. BRITTON, FRED J. SEAVER, Tracy E. HAZEN and JEAN BROADHURST.
Field Committee, E. B. SouTHWICK, WILLIAM MANSFIELD and NORMAN TAYLOR.
Committee on Local Flora, N. L. Britton, Chairman. FPhan- erogams: Ni. Ju) Brirron, €) @. Curnis,-2. PB. BICKNELL, K. K: MACKENZIE, E. S. BurcEss and E. L. Morris. Cryptogams: Wm. A. Murrity, E. G. Britton, Tracy E. Hazen, M. A. Howe and Puitie DOWELL.
Budget Committee, H. H. Russpy, E. S. BurcEss, J. H. BARN- HART, B. O. DopGE, PuiLip DOWELL and N. L. Britton.
A motion was made by Dr. M. A. Howe that for the ensuing year the offices ef secretary and treasurer shall be held by one person; that th@ secretary and treasurer shall be instructed to assist the editor by preparing the annual volume indexes for the BULLETIN and TorRREYA, by selecting the titles and preparing the copy for the Index to American Botanical Literature, and by distributing to subscribers the Card Index; that in considerat'on of the demands upon his time and attention, the secretary and treasurer shall receive from the funds of the Club the sum of $300 a year, payable in equal monthly instalments, and that
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this amount shall be he'd to include any disbursements by him for clerical assistance.
The motion was carried.
Resignations were read and accepted from Mr. Macy Carhart and Mr. Gifford Pinchot.
Adjourned. Percy WILSON,
Secretary.
OF INTEREST TO TEACHERS*!
THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT
Under “Practical Science’’ Professor John M. Coulter dis- cusses (Science, June 10, 1910) the scientific attitude of mind or the scientific spirit. He describes three of its useful characteristics: First, that it is a spirit of inquiry, and in connection with this he makes the statement that it “is not the spirit of unrest, of discomfort, but the evidence of a mind whose every avenue is open to the approach of truth from every direction. For fear of being misunderstood, I hasten to say that this beneficial result of scientific training does not come to all those who cultivate it, any more than is the Christ-like character developed in all those who profess Christianity. I regret to say that even some who bear great names in science have been as dogmatic as the most rampant theologian. But the dogmatic scientist and theologian are not to be taken as examples of ‘the peaceable fruits of righteousness, for the general ameliorating influence of religion and of science are none the less apparent.”
Second, it is a “‘spirit which demands that a claimed cause shall be demonstrated. It is in the laboratory that one first really appreciates how many factors must be taken into the count in considering any result, and what an element of uncertainty an unknown factor introduces. Even when the factors of some: simple result are well in hand, and we can combine them with reasonable certainty that the result will appear, we may be entirely wrong in our conclusion as to what in the combination has produced the result. For example, the forms of certain
* Conducted by Miss Jean Broadhurst, Teachers College, Columbia University.
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plants were changed at will, by supplying to their surrounding medium various substances. It was easy to obtain definite results, and it was natural to conclude that the chemical structure of these particular substances produced the result, and our pre- scription was narrowed to certain substances. Later it was discovered that the results are not due to the chemical nature of the substances, but to a physical condition developed by their presence, a condition which may be developed by other sub- stances or by no substances, and so our prescription was much enlarged.”’
Professor Coulter calls attention to the fact that the ‘“‘pre- vailing belief among the untrained is that any result may be ex- plained by some single factor operating as a cause. They seem to have no conception of the fact that the cause of every result is made up of a combination of interacting factors, often in numbers and combinations that are absolutely bewildering to contem- plate.’’ Though it is fortunate when leaders, as in public opinion, “have gotten hold of one real factor,”’ this habit of .“‘ considering only one factor, when perhaps many are involved, indicates a very primitive and untrained condition of mind.”
Third, this spirit keeps one close to the facts. ‘‘There seems to be abroad a notion that one may start with a single well- attested fact, and by some logical machinery construct an elabo- rate system and reach an authentic conclusion, much as the world has imagined that Cuvier could do if a single bone were fur- nished him. The result is bad, even though the fact may have an unclouded title. But it happens too often that great super- structures have been reared upon a fact which is claimed rather than demonstrated. Facts are like stepping stones; so long as one can get a reasonably close series of them he can make some progress in a given direction, but when he steps beyond them he flounders. As one travels away from a fact its significance in any conclusion becomes more and more attenyated, until pres- ently the vanishing point is reached, like the rays of light from a candle.”
Such ‘vain imaginings’ are ‘‘delightfully seductive to many people, whose life and conduct are even shaped by them. I have
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been amazed at the large development of this phase of emotional insanity, commonly masquerading under the name of ‘subtle thinking.’ Perhaps the name is expressive enough, if it means thinking without any material for thought. And is not this one great danger of our educational schemes, when special stress is laid upon training? There is danger of setting to work a mental machine without giving it suitable material upon which it may operate, and it reacts upon itself, resulting in a sort of mental chaos. An active mind, turned in upon itself, without any valuable objective material, certainly can never teach any very reliable results. It is the trained scientific spirit which recognizes that it is dangerous to stray away very far from the facts, and that the farther one strays away the more dangerous it becomes, and almost inevitably leads to self-deception.
This Professor Coulter feels is the attitude of mind that sci- entific training is contributing to the service of mankind—con- tributing as an ideal which is already yielding tremendous results, and:as a force accumulating momentum for a larger expression.
In response to appeals from various scientific bodies, the Smith- sonian Institution has concluded the preparations for a biological survey of the Panama Canal Zone. Friends of the Institution have contributed funds for the expenses of the investigators, as it is felt a properly conducted survey would yield important scientific results. ‘‘It is known that a certain number of animals and plants in the streams on the Atlantic side are different from those of the Pacific side, but as no exact biological survey has ever been undertaken, the extent and magnitude of these differ- ences have yet to be learned. It is also of the utmost importance to determine exactly the geographical distribution of the various organisms inhabiting those waters, as the Isthmus is one of the routes by which animals and plants of South America have en- tered North America and vice versa. When the canal is completed the organisms of the various watersheds will be offered a ready means of mingling together, the natural distinctions now existing will be obliterated, and the data for a true understanding of the fauna and flora placed forever out of reach.”
733
“By the construction of the Gatun Dam a vast freshwater lake will be created, which will drive away or drown the majority of the animals and plants now inhabiting the locality, and quite possibly exterminate some species before they become known to science.”
Miss Graham, studying Conocephalum conicum ( Fegatella conica), finds that at Ithaca, N. Y., the gametophores begin to appear in June, that fertilization takes place about the first of July, that the spores are fully formed before the beginning of winter, and that in the following May the gametophore stalk rapidly elongates. This elongation is quickly followed by the elongation of the stalk of the sporogonium. The venter of the archegonium is two-layered at the time of fertilization, and soon becomes a massive calyptra. The first division of the fusion nucleus gives rise to free nuclei, which may lie parallel with or transversely to the major axis of the archegonium. A cell wall is not laid down until some little time has elapsed after division of the fusion nucleus; when the wall appears, it is transverse. By successive transverse divisions a filament of four or five cells is formed. This observation differs from that of Cavers, who described an octant stage. The first longitudinal walls appear in the outer or capsule end of the filament. At the time of separa- tion of the mother cells, the growth of the capsule is checked, while the calyptra continues growth, leaving quite a space between capsule and calyptra. The capsule and seta soon resume growth, fill the cavity, and distend the calyptra. No pseudoperianth, such as is found in Marchantia, is present. A sheath, which is a specialized portion of the gametophore, invests the calyptra. (W. J. G. Land, Botanical Gazette, February.)
Duncan S. Johnson, in the December Journal of the New York Botanical Garden calls attention to a heavy flood (November and December, 1909) in the Blue Mountain region of Jamaica, in which “scores of acres of coffee fields were stripped to the bare rock”’ and “‘even the primeval forest of the valley bottoms was swept out and carried down to the sea.’’ The “gray desert”’
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appearance in June, 1910, is described, and the sparse and hardly typical new growth is noted. It is expected that this ‘occupation of a virgin soil by a new plant covering’’ will prove as interesting as that previously described after the volcanic disturbances at Krakatoa. It certainly adds a new type to the work previously done at Krakatoa and along the ocean, and to that now being conducted at the Salton Sea.
A paper by C. V. Piper on botany in its relation to agricultural advancement, too varied to be abstracted here, appeared some months ago in Science (June 10, 1910). Hybrids, sports, and other plant variations—especially with reference to cultivated or agricultural plants are discussed in a way to be interesting even to the general reader.
The Nature Study Review for November, 1910, contains two articles of interest to high school teachers. One is by Alice J. Patterson on potatoes and oats as nature study topics. It includes much in subject matter and method that would be help- ful in the first year high school classes. The cuts are especially interesting. The first is of the first potato introduced into Europe from a water color of 1588 by Clusius; the second shows potato fruits, about one inch in diameter.
The second article is by Frederick L. Holtz on weeds, the common kinds, and the methods of eradicating them. It is in a form suitable for high school reading.
The question of coastal subsidence is discussed again in a recent Science (January 6, 1911) by H. H. Bartlett. Conditions near Buzzard’s Bay where fresh water peat is found fourteen feet below sea level are given as proof of subsidence which is still going on. The controversy is continued in the same journal (January 13 and February 24). In the latter issue D. S. Johnson writes to explain some of the facts used by Mr. Bartlett, in a way that leaves coastal subsidence very much of an open ques- tion.
NEWS ITEMS
From a recent number of the 7imes we learn that the United States Bureau of Fisheries will send the steamer Albatross on a scientific cruise, and by special arrangement the American Museum of Natural History of New York will codperate. The Albatross will sail from San Diego, Cal. Collecting parties will be landed in lower California to gather specimens of birds, reptiles, mammals and of the plant life of the coast. The New York Zodlogical Society and the New York Botanical Garden will be represented in these landing parties. The Gulf of California will be explored and the pearl shell fisheries studied with a view to transplanting pearl shell oysters to Florida waters.
Professor V. R. Gardner has been appointed associate professor of pomology at the Oregon Agricultural College to succeed Pro- fessor C. A. Cole, who has resigned.
During 1910 over three million persons visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The greatest day’s attendance was
152,454.
The University of Colorado Mountain Laboratory at Tolland, Colorado, begins its third session June 19, 1911. Courses in systematic botany, plant ecology, algology and field biology (plant and animal). The laboratory is at 8889 ft. and offers varied conditions for study. Pamphlet may be obtained from Dr. Francis Ramaley, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo- rado.
Recent visitors at the New York Botanical Garden include Dr. Ezra Brainerd, Dr. W. C. Coker, Dr. Marie Stopes of Man- chester, and Dr. C. F. Millspaugh en route to the Bahamas. Dr. and Mrs. N. L. Britton have gone to Cuba, and Dr. Small has returned from explorations in Florida.
The board of the University of Iowa has definitely decided to provide a special building for the collections of Prof. Calvin and Dr. T. H. Macbride, whose work on the geology and botany
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of Iowa has heretofore been handicapped by lack of adequate room.
Contributors to TORREYA are requested to note the change of address of Mr. Norman Taylor, the editor. After March 16 letters should be sent to Central Museum, Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y. A
Volume 1, No. 1 of Phytopathology, the official organ of the American Phytopathological Society has just appeared: The editors are L. R. Jones, C. L. Shear, and H. H. Whetzel.
The biological laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor, L. I., announces summer courses in botany as follows: Cryptogamic botany, Ecology, special advanced work in either of these subjects, and other studies of a more general character. For further information address Prof. F. W. Hooper, Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N. Y.
i has,
ec
— The T orrey Botanical Club
Contributors of accepted articles and reviews who wish six gratuitous copies of thenumber of TorreyA in which their papers appear, will kindly notify the editor when submitting manuscript.
_ Reprints should be ordered, when galley proof is returned to the editor, from The New Era Printing Co., 41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa., who have furnished the following rates :
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The following Committees have been appointed for 1911
Finance Committee Field Committee Jj. 1. Kane, Chairman E. B. Sournwick, Chairmai H. M. RicHarps Wm. MANSFIELD N. Tayior Budget Committee Program Committee H. H. Russy, Chairman Mrs. E. G. Brirron, Chairman J. H. Barnuart Miss JEAN BROADHURST N. L. Britron Tracy E. Hazen E. S.-BurcEss F. J. SEAVER B. O, DovcEe
Puitie DowELL Local Flora Committee N. L. Britton, Chairmau
Phanerogams: Cryptogams:
2 Pi OBICKNELT. ©; Mrs. E..G. Britton” N. L. Brirron Puitre DOWELL
E. S. BurGEss Tracy E. Hazen CC“ CURTIS ' M.A. Howe
K. K. Mackenzie W. A. Murritr
E, L. Morris
Delegate to the Council of the New York Academy of Sciences, WILLIAM MANSFIELD
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
OF THE
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB’
(1) BULLETIN
A monthly journal devoted to general botany, established 1870. Vol..37 published in 1910, contained 630 pages of text and 36 full-page plates. Price $3.00 per annum. | For Europe, 14 shillings. Dulau SEES) 237 Soho Square, London, are, agents for England. ead
Of former volumes, ae 24—37 can be supplied entire; cer- - tain numbers of other volumes are available, but the entire stock of some numbers has been reserved for the completion of sets. ~ Vols. 24-27 are furnished at the published price of two dollars each; Vols. 28-37 three dollars each.
Seine copies (30 cents) will pe furnished only when ae ; breaking complete volumes.
(2) MEMOIRS |
The Mewmorrs, established 1889, are published at irregular intervals. Volumes I-13 are now completed ; Nos. 1 and. 2 of Vol. 14 have been issued. The. subscription price is fixed at $3.00 per volume in advance. The numbers can also be pur- - chased singly. A list of titles of the individual papers and of | prices will be furnished on application. (3) The Preliminary Catalogue or f Anthophyta and Pte:
dophyta reported as growing within one hundred miles of New York, 1888. Price, $1.00.
‘Correspondence relating to the above publications should be addressed to MR. BERNARD 0. DODGE Columbia University
New York City
Vol. 11 | April, 1911 No. 4
TORREYA
A Monrutiy JourNnaAL oF BoranicaL Notes AND News EDITED FOR
THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
f BY : e NORMAN TAYLOR @
: _JOHN TORREY, 1796-1873
CONTENTS Some Floral Features of Mexico: H. H, RUSBY ......0....c. ccc ccsccesesessccveee vosseeees 77 The Nature and Function of the Plant Oxidases: ERNEST D. CLARK..........00c0.005 84 Chondrophora virgata in West Florida: ROLAND M. HARPER »......0c.cccccececesceeees g2 DVEWS DLECMIS Hor Us cies, icc duac ines pie ees Hes AC ae howe wawenenvale Kacsteccaibeuclace ep 98
PUBLISHED FOR THE CLUB
AT 41 NortH Queen Street, LANcastsR, Pa. BY THe New ERA Printinc Company
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THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB
President HENRY H. RUSBY, M.D.
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BERNARD O. DODGE, Ph.B. Columbia University, New York City —
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TORREYA
April, IgII Vol. 11 No. 4
SOME FLORAL FEATURES OF MEXICO* By H. H. Russy
At a rough estimate, two thirds of Mexican territory is arid, and nearly half of this can be considered a desert, in that it cannot naturally support grazing animals.
The fertile region includes (1) the lowland of the south, witha tropical climate, and amidst which there are numerous mountains possessing a subtropical, or some of them even a temperate climate, and which gradually changes into an arid region as it rises into the central table-land; (2) an eastern or Gulf Coast strip which, gradually narrowing, extends from the southern tropics clear up into Texas; (3) a Pacific Coast strip which, narrow at all points, gives way northward to the desert region of and adjacent to the Peninsula of California.
Within these boundaries, and stretching to the Rio Grande, is the arid region, of which more than the northern half, and especially the northwestern portion, is a real desert.
This, with the exception of its western part, is the region best known to tourists and visitors, for the reason that the main lines of travel run directly through it from north to south. It presents the same general aspect as the country through which the Southern Pacific Railroad runs from western Texas to Los Angeles. If one passes through it toward the close of the dry season, which extends in its most favorable sections from De- cember to July, and in its most unfavorable ones begins nearly two months earlier, he encounters a region of torrid heat and
* Abstract of an illustrated lecture delivered to the Torrey Botanical Club, February 14, 1gtt. [No. 2, Vol. 11, of TORREYA, comprising pp. 51-76, was issued 21 Mr rg1t.}
ae
ABRARY ‘EW YOR SOTANICA (iARDEN
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intense dryness, in which every motion stirs up a copious, fine, penetrating dust which keeps one covered as long as he remains in it. At this time, the landscape is almost unvaryingly bare and of various shades of gray, brown and red. Flowers are almost wanting, although this is a favorite blooming time with many cactuses, and there are some other succulents, such as jatrophas, which then begin to bloom.
Not only does the period of rains differ greatly in different parts of this arid region, but the amount of rain shows remarkably wide limits of variation. Even where there is but little, a surprising change occurs in the aspect of the country after its occurrence. Within a month, the ground acquires a more or less nearly complete covering of grasses and is carpeted in patches, often large ones, with solid masses of bloom, and the appearance of the surface is abundantly broken by patches of flowering shrubs. ;
‘The most conspicuous objects on these plains are yuccas, agaves, flat and cylindrical jointed opuntias, covilleas, Proso-
Fic. 1. The Balsas River.
pis, and artemisias. The opuntias grow almost everywhere. yuccas of some species are almost as generally distributed,
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though the very large and conspicuous ones are confined to certain districts. Agaves are mostly confined to the mountains or rocky places. Of all these plants, the most striking is a giant branching yucca, reaching a height of twenty feet or more, which bears its dense panicles of white flowers, more than a yard in length and two thirds as broad, in a strictly pendulous position. The larger shrubby growth is mostly mimosaceous, consisting of Prosopis and Acacia, with smaller mimosas and calliandras about their bases.
Very frequently the Prosopis attains the dimensions of a good-sized tree, though this more commonly occurs as we are entering the fertile or semi-fertile southern districts. It is very rare that we encounter streams in this region, though arroyos, carrying water in the rainy season, are seen in all directions. In such locations, where there is a water supply not too far below the surface, a fringe of cottonwoods and pepper trees may be seen.
The herbaceous patches of bloom, to which reference has been made, consist chiefly of Compositae, especially Pectis, Actinella, Layia, Melampodium, and taller Baileya, Coreopsis, Grindelia and Gymnolomia. ‘There are also many tuberous rooted ipomeas and oxalids.
Everywhere in sight are mountains of enormous height, many of their slopes being apparently inaccessible. Their appearance, for the most part, is even more arid than that of the plains, but since they receive much more frequent and copious showers, their upper portions probably possess a rich and interesting flora. It has never been my lot to ascend any of them.
The northwestern desert region I have never visited, and I must say the same of the eastern coast, so that I shall not at- tempt a description of those regions.
The transition from this desert table land, where the produc- tion of cultivated crops without irrigation is impossible and where water for irrigation is not to be had, by any present methods, is of great interest. It must be stated, however, that in some places portions of the desert have been brought under cultivation by means of a water supply obtained either
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from rivers or artesian wells, and here the soil has been found of great fertility, so that there is hope of eventually redeem- ing a large portion of this desert.
The first change noticed, a little more than half-way from the United States border to the City of Mexico, is a more liberal water supply, encouraging extensive tillage by irrigation methods. A little farther south we find that although irrigation is very largely resorted to, it is possible to produce such crops as corn through the unaided agency of the rainy season. The rapidity with which such crops grow and attain maturity at this time is indeed remarkable.
Most of my own field work in Mexico has been performed in this semi-arid region, so that I have had an opportunity to become rather well acquainted with the general features of its
Fic. 2. Lava Beds along Cuernavaca R. R.
flora, while not having found time to determine many of the species encountered. One of the most noticeable sights to the visitor from the north is that of the vast fields of maguey or century plant, used for the manufacture of the fermented bever- age pulque and its distillate, mezcal. Its buds, taken just before flowering, resembling huge cabbages and occasionally a hundred
81
pounds or more in weight, are baked into a sugary mass which is eaten as a sort of sweet conserve. In these cultivated lands, the Prosopis becomes a tree, much resembling a spreading oak, or even a large apple tree. These trees are left standing in the cultivated ground and their branches become the support for stacks of hay or other fodder, thus placed out of reach of maraud- ing animals.
In the vicinity of Iruapato, vast areas are devoted wholly to the culture of the strawberry, irrigation by the use of shallow wells being resorted to, and the delicious fruit being supplied throughout the year. The natural aspects of the vegetation here have largely disappeared, owing to the fact that the land is almost wholly cultivated, but in the waste places there is a rich and varied herbaceous and suffrutescent flora. In many places the steep hillsides and narrow valleys are used only for grazing purposes and here there is often a dense covering of large shrubs or small trees. In some places these trees consist largely of junipers, intermingled with Acacia, Prosopis, Arctosta- phylos and cotton-woods, while along the edges of the streams the beautiful and often enormous Mexican cypress begins to appear. A specimen of the last-named tree, growing in Oaxaca and called “the Tule,’’ is one of the largest trees in the world. A strange and very showy effect is sometimes produced amidst this arborescent hill growth by the abundance of loranthaceous parasites which it supports. Much of this parasitic growth consists only of Phoradendron, and is merely green or yellowish green, but at times the crowns of the trees in all directions will be seen invaded by masses of brightly colored members of this family, the entire mass glowing with brilliant scarlet, crimson or yellow. Sometimes almost the entire crown of a juniper tree will be occupied by such a growth. During the rainy season many of the natural hollows will be converted into pools, some- times acquiring the dimensions of small lakes. In addition to these natural deposits of water, artificial ones are created by the farmers, wherever there is a sloping surface which can be dyked with mud at its lower boundaries, so that one sees so much water as to create the impression that he is in a country of
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marshland. Around the margins of such pools, especially the natural ones, there is frequently seen a broad band of pink or purple Cosmos, sometimes a hundred yards or more in breadth and presenting a solid mass of color. Similar patches of yellow Helianthus, Coreopsis and related genera are abundant.
These are the conspicuous features of the flora, as viewed by one who is passing through it. When we dismount and walk over these hills and through the valleys, our interest centers in the wonderful variety of small annual and perennial herbs, both as to species and larger groups, which crowd into every undis- turbed spot.
In the foothills of the mountains of this region, the botanist becomes quite lost in the profusion of unfamiliar plants. The acacias and Prosopids exist in undiminished abundance and, grow- ing among them so thickly as to make travel difficult, are nu- merous species of Terebinthus, or Bursera, spiny erythrinas bearing long moniliform pods showing brilliant scarlet seeds through their half-opened sutures, stinging jatrophas, intricately thorny Rubiaceae and small silk-cotton trees, and all these frequently bound together by twining Clematis, Passiflora, Thomaea and leguminous vines. Many of the smaller shrubs also are leguminous, among them the beautiful Brongniartia, with silky-white herbage and lovely dark chocolate-colored flowers. In some places the arborescent growth is almost wholly of the Palo Amarillo rubber-tree, Euphorbiodendron fulvum. Extremely varied are the lantanas, their flowers ranging in color from pure white or white with a golden eye, through various shades of pink and purple, even to brilliant orange or vermilion. Almost equally abundant and varied are the species of Stevia. Among the herbaceous vegetation, purple flowered Oxalis exists in great variety, with many Geraniums, purple flowered ruellias and Nyctaginaceae, and yellow Tribulus. Ferns of the hardier kinds, such as rigid pellaeas and notholaenas, are frequent, but not nearly so abundant as farther south. Where the canyons open out into valleys leading to the plains, the Cactaceae comprise the greatest bulk and the most interesting feature of the flora. In places the entire surface over many
acres is so intricately covered with opuntias that travel is slow and difficult. At first sight, and until one has become accustomed to their examination, all seem to be slightly variable forms of a single species, but one presently becomes aware that the varia- tions, however numerous and slight, are constant. If he is then fortunate enough to secure the companionship of a competent and experienced mountaineer, he will learn that all these forms, and more than he has differentiated, are distinguished by names and that the differences between them, such as the shade of green of the surface, the form and relative thickness of the joints, the shade of color of the flowers, their time of appearing and the color, especially the internal color, of the fruits, and their edible properties, are all well defined by the natives. I am strongly of the opinion that the relation between the present state of our knowledge of the Mexican opuntias, and that of the future, is much like that of our knowledge of American Crataegi
Fic. 3. Vitis blanco Munson.
of ten years ago as compared with that of the present. Some of these flat-jointed opuntias are old and large trees, with trunks two feet or more in diameter. The huge, widely and densely branching Myrtilocactus is often conspicuous and abun-
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dant. Its small, delicious fruit is an important article of trade, under the name of ‘‘Garambulla.”’
As we approach the valley of Mexico, we come into a more fertile region, producing tropical fruits and other products indi- cating the rich luxuriance which we are to encounter after another day’s journey to the south or east. The mountain flora of the vicinity of Mexico is of special interest and beauty. Here there are many species of salvia, oxalis, verbena, geranium, Solanum, etc. Terrestrial orchids are decidedly numerous, though scarcely abundant, and the instant that we penetrate to the warm and moist valleys, even quite near to the city, interesting and handsome arboreal species begin to appear. Arboreal ferns, tillandsias and. other bromeliads are also nu- merous. In rich places among the rocks dahlias of various colors are common and abundant.
(To be continued)
THE NATURE AND PUNCTION OF THE PLANT OXIDASES
By ERNEST D. CLARK
(Continued from March Torreya)
FUNCTION OF THE OXIDASES IN THE PLANT Physiology
It is evident from the preceding chapters that oxidizing enzymes are very widely distributed. Since enzymes generally seem to be produced by plants or animals for some definite purpose in the life of the organism, it was natural that specula- tion should arise regarding the function of the oxidizing enzymes. Their usefulness to the plant probably lies in their power to act as accelerators of the ordinary processes of oxidation as we shall see in a closer study of their function in the plant.
The oxidases, more especially peroxidase and occasionally oxygenase, are found in seeds and seem to bear some relation
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to the age of the seed, state of germination, etc. Brocq-Rousseu and Gain*"” examined the seeds of species of plants from many different families. They used both guaiac tincture and guaiacol with the addition of hydrogen peroxide as tests for peroxidase or ‘‘peroxydiastase,’’ as they called it. Peroxidase was present in nearly all seeds examined, the amount decreasing with their age; however, in kernels of corn they found peroxidase after the corn had been standing for over two hundred years. They further noted that oxygenase was rarely present in the seeds, and also that the strongest test for peroxidase was given by the embryo. Bialosuknia*! made glycerine extracts of resting and germinating seeds, testing these extracts for oxidases with guaiac tincture, indophenol reagent, benzidin, etc. Peroxidase was present in the resting seeds and at all stages of germination, while oxygenase (direct oxidase) could not be detected in the seeds before the second day, after which it was always present. Deleano® also made a study of the germination of seeds, getting the same results as those obtained by Bialosuknia. The catalase increased rapidly and then disappeared along with the fat. He found further that reductase (reducing enzyme) was present and that it was localized in the protein part of the seed. Issajew* made a careful study of the oxidase of germinated barley, his results agreeing with those of the other investigators already noted. He found the same increase of oxidases after germination and confirmed the presence of the so-called reducing enzymes under these conditions.
In the study of oxidizing substances and enzymes in biological materials, it soon became apparent that in many cases there occurred reducing substances along with the oxidases, etc. Frequently these reducing substances were called enzymes and given special names, such as the “philothion’’ of Rey-Pail-
20° Brocq-Rousseu and Gain. Sur l’existence d’une peroxydiastase dans les
graines seches. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 145: 1297. 1907. 31 Bialosuknia. Ueber Pflanzen-Fermente. Zts. Physiol. Chem. 58:487. 1908. 8 Deleano. Recherche chemique sur lar germination. Centralbl. f. Bakt., II. Abt. 24: 130. 1909. %8Issajew. Ueber die Malzoxydase. Zts. Physiol. Chem. 45: 331. 1905.
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hade,** who in 1888, announced that in beer yeast he had found a substance which caused the evolution of hydrogen sulphide from sulphur, even in the cold. In the potato, egg-plant, etc., Kastle and Elvolve® found that there were substances which reduced nitrates to nitrites, the most favorable temperature for this action being from 40° to 50°; the action being retarded by acids and much increased by benzaldehyde and benzyl alcohol. Action is also completely checked by boiling, but the authors hesitated to say that this action is due to an enzyme; they classified this reducing substance with those compounds that are unstable and easily oxidized, and which reduce nitrates, but not in unlimited quantity. This statement might also be applied to the so-called reducing enzymes found by Irving and Hankinson®® in the Gramineae. In the action of both yeast and bacteria, reduc- ing substances probably play a part, since they are usually present. :
We may say, then, that reducing substances are of common occurrence in plants, both in the higher and lower representatives. In many plant juices there occur reducing substances which, in the test for oxidases with the color reagents, gradually de- colorize all the mixture except a zone near the surface of the liquid; this upper colored part being immediately bleached if the solution is thoroughly shaken, but it reappears upon standing. These reducing substances, as well as catalase, may act as a check upon the activity of peroxidase in the living cell, but after death or narcosis, the production of reducing substances is lessened and the oxidases develop pigments, 7. e., oxidize the chromogens to colored compounds. It seems doubtful that these reducing substances are enzymes, since we know that ordinary reducing substances resulting from metabolism are present in practically all animal and plant cells. Such substances
34 Rey-Pailhade: (a) Nouvelle recherche physiologique sur la substance organique hydrogénant le soufre a froid. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 107: 430. 1888. (6) Sur une corps d'origine organique hydrogénant le soufre a froid. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 106: 1683. 1888.
35 Kastle and Elvolve. The Reduction of Nitrates by Certain Plant Extracts, etc. Am. Chem. Jour. 31: 606. 1904.
36Trving and Hankinson. The Presence of Nitrate Reducing Enzymes in Green Plants. Biochem. Jour. 3: 87. 1908.
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may be formed by photosynthesis and in the metabolism of the plant. Heffter*” believed that the so-called reducing enzymes are not enzymes at all, but that the reducing action is due to the decomposition products of protein, especially those containing the SH group. This, however, is denied by Frankel and Dimitz*® who believe that the reducing power of cells is due to their unsaturated fatty substances.
It seems likely that the oxidizing ferments assist in carrying on the oxidative processes of respiration by increasing the rapidity of the combination of oxygen with the oxidizable sub- stances in the plant. It has long been known that there are certain plants which at times develop a temperature above that of their surroundings, representatives of the Araceae showing this peculiarity in a striking manner. Hahn* investigated this phenomenon in Arum maculatum, the spadix of which is often from 20° to 27° C. warmer than the surrounding air. He used press-sap from the spadix of the plant and found that upon ex- posure to the air, the liquid rapidly became greenish black; so he concluded that an oxidizing enzyme (tyrosinase) was present. Hahn allowed the press-sap to remain at 25° for several days and at the end of that time the content of sugars, originally high, dropped to nothing, with accompanying loss of weight in the carbon dioxide evolved. This process could be entirely pre- vented by heating the press-sap to 60° for half an hour before allowing it to stand. Furthermore, the same process took place in an atmosphere of hydrogen; so Hahn thought he was dealing with a case of intra-molecular respiration carried on by oxidizing enzymes. Krause“ noticed a similar elevated temperature with loss of dry weight [probably carbohydrates] in Arum ttalicum and Knoch* did so in the case of the flower of Victoria Regia
37 Heffter. Die reduzierenden Bestandtheile der Zellen. Med. Naturwiss. Arch. I: part I, p. I5. 1907.
% Frankel and Dimitz. Gewebatmung durch Intermedidrekérper. Wiener klin. Wochensch. 1909: No. 51, p. 1777.
® Hahn. Chemische Vorginge im zellfreien Gewebsaft von Arum maculatum. ' Ber. Chem. Gesell. 33: 3555. 1901.
Krause. Ueber die Bliitenwirme von Arum Italicum. Abhandl. Naturfor. Gesell. zu Halle, 1882, p. 16.
41Knoch. Untersuchungen iiber den Physiologie, etc., der Bliite von Victoria Regia. Diss. Marburg, 1897.
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at the time of the opening of its petals. As we have seen, the many striking changes of color in plants after injury with the resulting exposure to the atmospheric oxygen, have long been subjects of investigation, but until recently such research was confined to studies of the enzymes involved, to the consequent neglect of the chromogens affected by these enzymes. Instudying the role of the oxidases, if we were to consider only the enzymes, we should be neglecting the other half of the problem, for the chromogens occurring in plants are the sources of all the colora- tions and may very well act as oxygen carriers in the metabolism of the plant. Even in 1882 Reinke” interested himself in the substances in the plant which gave colored oxidation products under the influence of oxidases and of the air. The juice of the potato and of the white beet contained a chromogen which became dark upon standing in the air, but it was easily changed back to its original colorless state by reducing agents or by certain bacteria. He thought that the colorless condition of the chromogens in the living cell is due to accompanying reducing substances, or else that the cell is able to oxidize the chromogens through the colored state to a more highly oxidized colorless condition.
To show the distribution of these chromogens among plants this outline, adapted from Chodat,® is given (the changes being from colorless to that indicated) :
Yellow, to green, then to blue—Boletus spp.
Red, violet and then black—many of the higher fungi, es- pecially Agaricaceae; wheat seedlings, potatoes, apples, nuts, Lathyrus niger, secretions of certain ink-fish, etc.
Brown, then black—Rhus succedana, etc.
Violet-red—Jacobinia spp.™
Black—the higher fungi, especially Hygrophorus spp.; Mono- tropa uniflora and Viburnum lantana.
?
42 Reinke. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss leicht oxidirbarer Verbindungen der Pflanzen-kérpers. Zts. Physiol. Chem. 6: 263. 1882.
43Chodat. Chapter on the ‘“‘Oxydases’” in Abderhalden’s Handbuch der Bio- chem. Arbeitsmethoden, III, 2d part, p. 42 ff. 1910.
44Parkin. Ona Brilliant Pigment Appearing after Injury in Species of Jacobinia Report Brit. Assn Advancem. Sci. 1904, p. 818.
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Palladin® and his collaborators have taken up the question of the role of the chromogens and the oxidases in the respiration of the plant. They have followed out the general line of thought first conceived by Reinke. They have published many papers on the subject which cannot be abstracted here in detail, but a general outline of their results and conclusions will be given. In the anaerobic respiration of seeds, alcohol, acetone, and sub- stances of aldehyde nature were obtained. Oxygenase increases with the growth of the part containing it. Both oxygenase and peroxidase are much increased by feeding the plant freely with sugars. The chromogens also increase under such circumstances. Palladin made a systematic search for the respiratory chro- mogens, and found they were very wide-spread and were gen- erally red or brown when oxidized. To detect the chromogens he ground the plant material under water and thus obtained a light-colored solution to which he added peroxidase (from horse- radish) and hydrogen peroxide; if the chromogen were present, it was soon oxidized and caused the solution to darken. In this manner he found that of seventy-one different plants examined, sixty-seven contained chromogens and that the parts with an active respiration like flowers, young shoots, etc., showed the greatest amount of respiratory chromogen. Chloroformed plants soon began to show coloration due to the oxidation of their chromogens. These chromogens seem to be derivatives of the cyclic series, and Palladin considered that they often occur in the form of glucosides, which, by the action of glucoside-splitting enzymes, are separated from the sugars and then take up oxygen by the aid of the oxidases, thus becoming colored. During the normal life of the plant there is a codrdinated action of these hydrolytic, oxidizing, and reducing enzymes, which prevents oxidation of the chromogens, but during narcosis or after death,
45Palladin: (a) Die Atmungspigmente der Pflanzen. Zts. Physiol. Chem. 55: 207. 1908. (b) Die Verbreitung der Atmungschromogene bei den Pflanzen. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 26a: 378. 1908. (c) Ueber das Wesen der Pflanzen- atmung. Bioch. Ztsch. 18: 151. 10909. (d) Ueber die Bildung der Atmungs- chromogene in den Pflanzen. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 26a: 389. 1908. (e) Die Arbeit der Atmungsenzyme der Pflanzen, etc. Zts. Physiol Chem. 47: 407. 1906. (f) Ueber die Prochromogene der Pflanzen-Atmungschromogene. Ber. Bot. Gesell. Zi7f2 wit, | oYaYoy.
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the inter-relation of these enzymes is disturbed, with the result that the respiratory chromogens become evident by their color. The fact that these respiratory chromogens may take up oxygen and later give it up again under the influence of reducing sub- stances, led Palladin to call the respiratory chromogens the ‘‘phyto-haematins’’ because he thought they were similar to the oxygen-carrying pigments of the blood of animals.
This work of Palladin and his students upon respiratory chromogens is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the respiration of plants. His conception of the respiratory pig- ments as being cyclic compounds bound to the sugars in the form of glucosides which are insoluble, seems to be founded on fact. In the case of indigo-blue, according to Walther* and also in the case of many other pigments, the chromogen is held in the insoluble glucoside form, from which it is separated by the hydrolytic enzymes to give sugars, and then the oxidases attack the chromogen thus set free, imparting to it a definite color. In Schenckia blumenaviana, Molisch” found that the green plant became red upon treatment with chloroform vapor. This result he attributed to the action of an enzyme upon a chromogen in the plant. In certain of the Dipsacaceae, Miss Tammes*® demon- strated the presence of a colorless chromogen dipsacan which, under the influence of oxidases, was changed to a blue pigment called dipsacotin by this investigator. Miss Wheldale® believes that the red colorations of certain leaves and flowers are caused by anthocyan, a pigment resulting from the coérdinated action of oxidases and hydrolytic enzymes. She also considers that the color or lack of color in the offspring of such plants is due to the action of oxidases and reducing substances, etc., as factors
in heredity. Overton®® and also Tswett®! came to the con-
46Walther. Zur Frage der Indigo-bildung. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 27: 101. 1909.
47 Molisch. Ueber ein neues, einen karminroten Farbstoffe erzeugendes Chro- mogen bei Schenckia blumenaviana. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 19: 149. 1901.
48Miss Tammes. Dipsacan und Dipsacotin, ein neues chromogen und neues Farbstoffe der Dipsaceae. Recueil. Trav. Bot. Néerland. 5: 51. 1908.
49Miss Wheldale. Plant Oxydases and Chemical Relationships of Color Va- rieties. Prog. Rei. Botan. 3: 457. 1910.
50QOverton. Beobachtungen und Versuche iiber das Auftreten von rothem Zell- saft bei Pflanzen. Jahrb. Wiss. Botan. 33: 171. 1899.
51Tswett. Ueber den Pigmente der Herbstlich-vergilbten Laubes. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 26a: 98. 1908.
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clusion that the beautiful autumn colors of leaves are due to this same process, when the slowing up of the metabolic processes of the plant by the frost tends to hasten the formation of the oxidized pigments. It should be noted that in many cases the tannins act in this manner when oxidized, after being set free from their glucoside form. In a very recent study of the rdéle of the glucosides in the plant, Weevers®’ concludes that these substances may be considered as reserve foods, the cyclic com- pounds being attached to glucose-yielding substances of low diffusibility, thus serving to accumulate sugar, etc., for future use.
Besides this coérdinated action of the hydrolytic and oxidizing enzymes just described, there also seems to be an antagonistic action between the oxidases and the reducing substances in the cell; this antagonism tending to keep each sort from getting the upper hand during life, but after death when the production of reducing substances ceases for a time, the oxidases run riot, and blackening as well as colorations of various sorts result. The blackening of the foliage of many plants after a frost, and the production of the red and gold of our autumn forests, are doubtless due to the killing of the leaves or to an interference with their metabolism by the low temperature, and consequent excessive activity of the oxidases upon tannins and other sub- stances.
Finally, Czapek® has brought to light a most interesting example of the part played by oxidases in the life of the plant. He found that geotropically and phototropically stimulated plant organs always contained more reducing substances and also showed weaker tests for oxidases than similar organs unstimu- lated. Later he proved that the reducing substance which ac- cumulated after stimulation was homogentisic acid, and that, after stimulation, it did not seem to be destroyed by the oxidases as it had been before. What caused this accumulation of easily
8 Weevers. Die physiologische Bedeutung einiger Glycoside. Recueil. Trav. Bot. Néerland. 7: 1. 1910.
58 Czapek: (a) Ueber einen Befund an geotropsich gereizten Wurzeln. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 15: 516. 1897. (b) Stoffwechselprocesse in der geotropisch gereizten Wurzelspitze, etc. Ber. Bot. Gesell. 20: 464. 1902.
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oxidizable substances in the stimulated plant parts? By a series of careful experiments Czapek demonstrated that there was no decrease in the amount of oxidases present, but that they were inhibited by some influence, this influence later proving to be an anti-enzyme. He showed that the anti-enzyme thus formed really neutralized the oxidizing enzyme in definite proportion; that it was specific for that one plant, less so for the genus and not at all for distantly related plants; that heating a mixture of anti-enzyme and enzyme to 62° destroyed the former, the latter then regaining its original activity. Czapek demonstrated also that the anti-enzyme does not exist at all in unstimulated parts of the same plants, but later is produced in them upon stimulation. This anti-enzyme has the power of inhibiting the normal oxida- tion of the homogentisic acid in the plant, so that after stimula- tion, both the homogentisic acid and the anti-enzyme make their appearance and accumulate. However, Graefe and Linsbauer™ report that they were unable to find the increase of reducing substances in stimulated parts as claimed by Czapek.
LABORATORY OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEw YORK. (To be continued)
CHONDROPHORA VIRGATA IN WEST FLORIDA
ROLAND M. HARPER
Ninety-three years ago that sagacious botanist, Thomas Nuttall, proposed as a new species Chrysocoma virgata,* describing it at some length, and remarking that it was allied to C. nudata Mx., but might easily be confounded with Solidago tenuifoha. The locality given for it was “On the borders of swamps in New Jersey, near the sea-coast.’’ In 1836 A. P. DeCandolle included this species and a few others in his new genus Bigelowia,t and cited a specimen collected “in Florida prope Savannah.”
54Graefe and Linsbauer. Zur Kenntniss der Stoffwechselanderungen bei geo- tropischer Reizung. Sitzber. Wien. Akad. I. Abt. 118: 907. 1909.
* Gen. 2: 137. 1818.
} Prodr. 5: 329. 1836.
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About the same time specimens corresponding very well with Nuttall’s description were collected in Louisiana by Hale and in Texas by Riddell and by Drummond, and these were doubtless taken into consideration by Torrey & Gray in describing the range of their ‘‘ Bigelovia nudata,’’* for they did not regard the plant in question as specifically distinct. ;
No such plant has since been found. within sixty miles of Savannah (Georgia), or within several hundred miles of New Jersey. The Louisiana and Texas specimens are still preserved in the Torrey Herbarium, but unfortunately, as in the case of many others collected in the first half of the nineteenth century, they are accompanied by no information about where they came from other than the name of the state. The omission of all data about habitat is especially disappointing, since in this particular species its habitat is one of its most important charac- ters, as will be shown presently.
At various times in the second half of the roth century our plant was mentioned in floras of the northeastern and south- eastern states, usually as a variety of C. nudata, and in the absence of any accurate information to the contrary, it was assumed to have about the same range and habitat as its better-known relative, namely, the pine-barrens of the coastal plain. In 1894 Dr. Britton substituted Rafinesque’s name Chondrophora for DeCandolle’s Bigelowia (which was a homonym), and the fol- lowing year Prof. Greeneft restored our plant to specific rank, at the same time restricting the genus Chondrophora to these two species, nudata and virgata.
Twenty years ago, although the fact was probably not realized at the time, Chondrophora virgata was as completely lost to science as Franklimia, Elliottia, Chrysopsis pinifolia, Pentstemon dissectus and Mesadenia diversifolia, for no botanist then living had ever seen it growing. But on Sept. 15, 1892, Dr. Charles Mohr found on the rocky banks of Little River on Lookout Mountain in DeKalb County, Alabama, about 1,600 feet above sea-level, specimens of a plant which he identified with some hesitation
*E], N. A. 2: 232. 1842. See also Gray, Syn. Fl. N. A. 17: t41. 1884. { Erythea 3: 91. 1895.
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as this long-lost species of Nuttall’s,* and a few years later Mr. Henry Eggert collected immature specimens of the same thing in the same general region.t In the spring of 1901 Mr. T. G. Harbison found it ‘‘in shallow soil in the glades and along rocky streams’? on Sand Mountain in Marshall County, Alabama;t and in the winter of 1905-6 I saw it in Marshall, DeKalb and Cherokee Counties,§ always on Carboniferous sandstone along streams on the plateaus, as my predecessors had found it.
Up to 1903 the only known stations for this plant (excluding those in New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas as unknown) were in the mountains of Alabama. In that year, however, I collected it on outcrops of Altamaha Grit in Tattnall and Dooly Counties in the coastal plain of Georgia,|| and in 1906 I saw it in similar situations in Washington and Coffee Counties, in the same region.§| At each of these places some of its associates were the same as in the mountains of Alabama, although the general aspect of the surrounding country was very different.
The only known exposure of Altamaha Grit in Florida is at Rock Hill, which is about 414% miles southeast of Chipley; and up to last fall this interesting spot does not seem to have ever been visited by a botanist.** Having heard something of this place through geological literature, I visited it on Sept. 24, 1910, to see how it compared with similar places in Georgia.
* See Bull. Torrey Club 24: 28. 1897; Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 6: 79, 771. 1901.
+I saw one of Eggert’s specimens in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden several years ago, but it has since been misplaced or destroyed, and I do not remember the exact data on the label.
{Biltmore Bot. Stud. 1: 153. 1902.
§ Torreya 6: 112, 114, 115. 1906.
|| See Bull. Torrey Club 32: 168. 1905; Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 17: 42, 43, 146. 1906. These two localities have since been included in the new counties of Toombs and Crisp, respectively. In 1900 (Bull. Torrey Club 27: 423) I inadver- tently designated this species as an inhabitant of moist pine-barrens in Sumter County, Georgia; but my specimens proved to be nothing but the common C. nudata.
_ [See Torreya 6: 243, 244. 1906.
** In the Plant World for April, 1902 (5: 71), Mr. A. H. Curtiss reports having collected Cheilanthes Alabamensis ‘‘on top of a tower like rock’’ at Cedar Grove, a few miles south of Chipley. There happens to be a tower-like rock on one side of Rock Hill, but there are no ferns on it, and Mr. Curtiss’s rock must have been of a very different sort, probably limestone
. 95
Rock Hill is one of a group of several peculiar isolated hills in the northern part of Washington County, Florida.* I would estimate its dimensions roughly as about one-fourth mile long (approximately north and south), one-eighth mile wide, and 50 feet high. Like the country for several miles in all directions, it is covered with open forests of long-leaf pine, now badly damaged by lumbermen, so that the rocks on it can be seen from a considerable distance. On its slopes there are several hori- zontal ledges of a pine-bark-colored rock which seems to differ from the typical Altamaha Grit of Georgiaf only in being a little more sandy, and this difference is apparent only on close inspec- tion. Like the corresponding rock in Georgia, too, it never appears on the summit of a hill, but always on slopes. (See illustration.)
It seems to be generally true that the flora of any particular habitat is richest near the center of distribution of that habitat.f This principle is illustrated by the vegetation of Rock Hill, which is about 100 miles from any other known outcrop of the same kind of rock. On the bare rocks, and on the thin soil which covers them on gentle slopes, I identified the following species (which are here arranged approximately in order of abundance):
TREES Pinus palustris Quercus geminata
SHRUBS Gaylussacia dumosa : Batodendron arboreum Vaccinium nitidum Callicarpa americana Chrysobalanus oblongifolius Serenoa serrulata Symplocos tinctoria
HERBS Aristida stricta Pteris aquilina Chondrophora virgata Aster sp.§ Chrotonopsis spinosa? Laciniaria gracilis Panicum dichotomum?|| Campulosus aromaticus
* See Tenth Census U.S. 6: 224. 1884.
+See Bull. Torrey Club 32: 134-144. 1905; Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 17: 22-23. 1906.
{See Bull. Torrey Club 32: 149 (second paragraph). 1905; Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 17: 55, 78, 89. 1906; Torreya 7: 43, 44. 1907.
§ One of the dichotomous panicums, at any rate. In July, 1906, I saw what is probably the same thing on an outcrop of the same kind of rock in Washington County, Georgia.
|| With rather large blue heads and narrow leaves.
96 :
Fimbristylis puberula Anthaenantia villosa Fimbristylis laxa Trilisa odoratissima Gerardia filifolia? Chaptalia tomentosa
Afzelia cassioides Agave (Manfreda) virginica
Muhlenbergia expansa LICHENS Cladonia sp.
Nearly all of these plants are common in ordinary dry pine- barrens in the neighborhood, the only ones especially character- istic of the rocks being the Chondrophora, Crotonopsis, Fim- bristylis laxa, and perhaps the Panicum and Agave.
Next to the wire-grass, our Chondrophora seemed to be the most abundant plant. It was in bloom at the time, and I secured plenty of specimens, which agree with those from Georgia and Alabama in every particular.
In some places on the slopes of Rock Hill a little water seeps out, making a suitable habitat for a moist pine-barren flora, of the kind that is characteristic of Southeast Georgia, West Florida, etc. One of the commonest plants in such habitats, from North Carolina to Mississippi, is Chondrophora nudata. Here at Rock Hill, as well as in Crisp County, Georgia,* it could sometimes be found within a few feet of its rock-loving relative; and there being no marked difference between them except in the width and number of their basal leaves, they could hardly be distinguished a few feet away.
This suggests an interesting problem in evolution. If Chon- drophora virgata were known only from the two localities last mentioned, one might reasonably assume’ that it was merely a narrow-leaved extreme of the common C. nudata, developed in direct response to its rocky habitat. But the fact that it is most abundant in the mountains of Alabama, far removed from any C. nudata (which is strictly confined to the coastal plain, and does not even approach the fall-line very closely, as far as known), would seem to make this hypothesis untenable. For all we know, our plant may have been growing on the Carbonifer- ous sandstones long before the coastal plain—or the pine-barren
* See Bull. Torrey Club 32: 168. 1905. What is now Crisp County was then included in Dooly.
ot
portions of it at least—emerged from the sea. An alternative hypothesis would be that C. nudata was evolved from C. virgata at a comparatively recent period, geologically speaking, and being in some manner adapted to a widespread habitat became widely
Fic. 1. Ledge of Altamaha Grit on west side of Rock Hill, Florida. Chon- drophora virgata is common on top of these rocks.
distributed. This however does not account for the remarkably disjointed distribution of C. virgata, unless we ascribe to it extraordinary facilities for dissemination. Evidently there are some unknown historical factors still to be taken into considera- tion.
The known distribution of Chondrophora virgata may now be summed up by saying that it is known from three counties in the mountains of Alabama, four in the coastal plain of Georgia, and one in West Florida, always on non-calcareous rocks. (I have seen it myself in all these eight counties, and have collected it in half of them.) The re-discovery of the long-lost stations in Louisiana and Texas is greatly to be desired, especially in view of the fastidiousness of this plant as to habitat. It would appear
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from statements in geological literature that a rock similar to the Altamaha Grit occurs in several places in Louisiana (possibly also in Texas), and it is in just such places that the plant should be sought.
Its eastern limit may be placed at the Ohoopee River in Geor- gia, at least until the mystery of the type-locality is solved. Now it happens that Nuttall was in all probability the first botanist who ever saw an outcrop of Altamaha Grit;* and know- ing this, one might jump to the conclusion that he really found the plant in Georgia, and ascribed it to New Jersey through a mixture of labels or an error of his printers. But unfortunately for this theory, the supposed date of his exploration of the Altamaha Grit country is several years subsequent to the publication of his ‘‘Genera’’; although it would appear from statements in this book (1: 231, for instance) that he had already visited Augusta and Savannah. .
UNIVERSITY, ALABAMA.
NEWS ITEMS
The old house in which Asa Gray lived for forty years, in the botanic garden of Harvard University, is to be taken down to avoid the danger from fire to the adjacent Gray Herbarium. This building, for many years the home of the university herba- rium and of Dr. Gray’s collections, is to be rebuilt elsewhere without much change in its form.
Dr. and Mrs. N. L. Britton have returned from a collecting trip to Cuba where explorations have been carried on in connec- tion with the studies