1908] Chase,— Text-figures in Gray's New Manual 207 
THE TEXT-FIGURES IN GRAY'S NEW MANUAL OF 
| BOTANY. 
AGNES CHASE. 
Two reviews of Gray's Manual of Botany, Seventh Edition, have 
recently appeared in Science and in RHODORA respectively. Both 
reviewers have mentioned that there are numerous illustrations, but 
neither has bestowed on these illustrations the attention they merit. 
. They are not merely figures of uniform size, so many to the page, but 
are faithful and beautifully executed representations of important 
specifie characters. When in the old days we pored over the Carex 
keys until we almost knew them by heart, we were often hard put to it 
to decide whether the perigynium in hand should go under *' Beakless”’ 
or *"Beaked," or whether the puzzling specimen in Ovales had a 
" Perigynium ovate-lanceolate with winged margins" or one "ovate- 
lanceolate or narrower, scale-like, with little distinction between body 
and margin," or “Spikes spreading or drooping” or “Spikes егесі,” 
trying first the one division, then the other. Here these very points 
are shown in the figures, and beak and teeth and wings, that almost 
defy description in words, stand forth in characteristic form. ‘The 
keys show the most painstaking work, but to make a perfect key is 
beyond the power of any human being, since Nature does not divide 
her species dichotomously. An accurate figure of the typical form, 
then, becomes of the greatest value. 
The figures of Aster and of Desmodium serve as further examples of 
the fidelity of the drawings and their usefulness in identification of 
species, illustrating in the former the involucral bracts and the jointed 
pods in the latter. In like manner are the various diagnostic charac- 
ters of the different genera brought out. Magnified cross-sections of 
the stem and portions of the epidermis are figured in Equisetum, the 
achenes in Sagittaria, flowers in Orchidaceae, the fruiting calyx in 
Rumex, pods and leaves in most of the Cruciferae, but rootstocks in 
Dentaria, fruit and cross-section of it in Umbelliferae, inflorescence 
and magnified flowers in Labiatae, the very distinct capsules of the 
commonly confused Plantago major and P. Rugelii, and so throughout 
all the genera which are illustrated. 
The fidelity of the artist's work to the plant before him is shown in 
the figure of the grotesque achene of Carex Tuckermanii Dewey, 
