aike O A DOES NE ens 
a cc O dE 
1911] Fernald,— Book Review 215 
from or summaries of papers and notes selected undiscriminatingly 
from many authors — good, bad, and very bad — and that too often 
the identifications for which the author acknowledges responsibility 
are hopelessly wrong. It is also obvious, as one glances over the 
delimitations of areas and the lists of “typic’’ (the author studiously 
avoids the normal al ending of adjectives) plants, that we here have 
a book written without a full appreciation of the axiomatic truth 
that a work on pbytogeography should be based on a clear under- 
standing of identities and of the geographic ranges of plants. 
The extracts which have been taken literally from our best observers 
are of course good as extracts; but the uncritical character of the 
author’s judgment of what he has found printed and his inadequate 
grasp of the subject with which he has attempted to deal are clearly 
shown by the following passages copied from almost consecutive pages 
of the book, with the reviewer’s comments bracketed. 
[p. 354] “Strand Formation....The strand flora of Newfoundland 
consists of Plantago maritima, Ligusticum scot[h]icum, . . . .while the 
waves roll in tangled masses of Vallisneria spiralis.” 
[There are many peculiar features about the Newfoundland flora but even 
there, just as on our mainland coast, the Eelgrass of the sea-margin is Zostera 
marina. Vallisneria, it seems superfluous to state, is a plant of fresh water 
and is unknown in Newfoundland as the author himself implies when he states 
elsewhere (p. 316) that it occurs only south of latitude 48°. The original 
author (John Bell) from whom Harshberger has apparently copied the state- 
ment about Vallisneria (as well as several other errors) was describing the head 
of Bay St. George in latitude 48°, 30'. A safer man to copy would have been 
Bachelot de la Pylaie, who in describing Bay St. George wrote: “Le zostera 
forme dans les anses des prairies sousmarines, à quelques décimétres au- 
dessous du niveau des basses eaux des marées de lune; ses longues feuilles 
graminiformes flottent alors couchées á la surface de la mer.” (la Pylaie, 
Voyage à l'Ile de Terre-Neuve, 70).].— 
[p. 354] “Coniferous Forest Formation of Newfoundland... .the 
higher ground inland may bei [be] covered with bushes of Juniperus 
communis, Taxus canadensis, Lyonia (Chamaedaphne) calyculata 
(Juniperus-Taxus Association).” 
[Certainly not a very cordial “Association”! For in Newfoundland the 
only representative of Juniperus communis is the var. montana, growing ordi- 
narily on the dry rocky or sandy areas or on bleak mountain ledges; Tarus 
canadensis there, as elsewhere, is a shrub chiefly of deep rich woodlands and 
by the distinguished Newfoundland geologist, the late Alexander Murray, was 
considered an indicator of the best land on the island; and Chamaedaphne 
is a typical shrub of wet bogs and flooded pond-margins. In other words, 
this “Juniperus-Taxus Association” of “the higher ground ” is largely imagi- 
nary and is made up of plants which rarely if ever associate.] 
[p. 354] “ Remarkable herbaceous plants of the forest [in Newfound- 
