169 
and A. lectulus; Orogenia fusiformis,; Peucedanum circumda- 
tum and P. Kingit (the latter=P..graveolens, Wats.) ; Podistera 
is anew genus of Umbgllifera. with a single species, P. Neva- 
densis, Microseris anomata, from Santa Cruz Island; Camassia 
Custckii ; Erythronium Hendersont, E. citrinum and E. Howellit, 
all from Oregon; SFuncus Congdonii, from Merced Co., Cal. 
Nii Bj 
“ Crazy” Pollen of the Bell-wort.—Byron D. Halsted. (Bot. 
Gazette, xii., pp. 139, 140, one plate; also reprinted.) 
Description and illustration of very curious forms of pollen 
tubes of Uvularia grandiflora grown on culture slides. 
| Diphylleia cymosa.—C. G. Lloyd. (Drugs and Medicines N. A., 
ii, pp. 120, 121.) 
Elements of Botany; including Organography, Vegetable His- 
tology, Physiology, Taxonomy, and a Glossary of Botanical 
Terms.—Edson S. Bastin. (8vo, pp. 282, 459 figures; 
Chicago, 1887.) 
Professor Bastin has written a very useful book, and one for 
which we predict a large sale. It is not a reference work in 
any sense, but a simple, straightforward presentation of the subject, 
which will prove of the highest value to beginners and may be 
used advantageously by more advanced students. Its arrange- 
ment and methods are indeed remarkably well adapted to an 
ordinary undergraduate course of study. 
Organography is first taken up, and followed by Histology. 
It seems to us more advantageous to reverse this arrangement, 
though it is a good deal a matter of taste and depends upon the 
opinion of the instructor. 
The systematic portion of the book is contained in the last 
fifty-four pages, and is a very concise treatment of the topic. 
We note a few points in which we can hardly agree: thus Yeast 
is included in Schizomycetes—microbes may better retain that 
name to themselves alone; the treatment of the Thallophytes is 
far simpler under the natural classes Alge, Fungi and Lichens as 
primary subdivisions, than under’the method of spore formation 
and sporocarps, which throws most unlike organisms together, 
but botanists appear to have gone mad on this system of late, in — 
Spite of its intricacy and unnaturalness; Sphagna are considered 
