Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club/Volume 2/12

BULLETIN
OF THE
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB.
Vol. 2. ]	New-York, December 1871.	[ No. 12.

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75.  Arceuthobium. — We have received further particulars about this interesting discovery.  Mrs. Millington writes, Nov. 23:

“It seems curious that the plant I found should be so nearly the one I set out to find last April when I first saw the Nevada parasite.   It occurred to me then that something of that kind might cause the unhealthy look and the decay of the Black Spruce, so well-known among the Adirondacks.  Almost the first Abies that I had an opportunity to examine was literally covered with that curious growth, then quite small and without fruit.  Some botanist, who has an opportunity to examine the Abies balsamea, might possibly find it infested with the same parasite.  Many trees present the same appearance as the A. nigra when the parasite is present.”

Again, in a letter dated Dec 12th she writes:

“I received a very interesting letter from Dr. Engelmann, and, to secure some winter specimens that we might study its habits more at large, I went myself to Warrensburg.   I got specimens from twenty different trees, large and small.  About 75 per cent of all the spruces were infested.  Groups of large trees forty feet high were dead, and bore the peculiar marks of the parasite.  Nothing but the depth of the snow (twelve inches) prevented my looking farther among the Abies balsamea, where I expect to find it yet.  The location is on the east side of the plank road, two miles and a half from Warrensburg village, and half a mile south of the toll-house.  It is known as Dr. McNutt's Marsh, and is about 60 rods from the road.”

“All the plants I send you are young ones: the question is, did they grow from this year's seed ?   You will, on examination, find tiny red points in the bark of this year's wood, and observe that the largest plants are in the older wood, and that none of them are the plants of last summer's growth.”

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76.  Note from Dr. Gray. — Mr. Peck of Albany sent me, early last autumn, a good specimen of a parasite on Abies nigra, asking what it was.  I replied that it was the female of an Arceuthobium, most likely A. campylopodum of Engelmann — to whom I advised he should send specimens; that the discovery was an interesting and unexpected one.  As Dr. Engelmann seems to have been supplied with much smaller and less developed specimens than I was, I venture to suspect that he will yet conclude that it is his A. campylopodum.

The curious thing about the discovery is: 1st, that it should not have been detected before; 2nd, that it should, after all this overlooking, be found during the same season by two persons, in three different counties, and so abundant as to disfigure or even to destroy the trees it infests.

I did not answer your communication at once, because I knew that the plant had already been brought to the knowledge of the Torrey Club, and because I sent it at once, with the specimen, to Dr. Engelmann, who has only now returned it.

December 4th, 1871.

A. G.