169 



Reviews of Foreign Literature. 



Flora of the Hawaiian Islands : A description of their Phan- 

 eroga7ns and Vascular Cryptogams, By William Hillebrand, 



M 



W 



Hillebrand, (8 vo., pp. 6^-^, four maps and frontispiece. Heidel- 

 berg, London and New York, i888.) 



The Sandwich Island Flora, from its great luxuriance and 

 variety and its marked isolation, is one of the most unique 

 and interesting. It has been studied by botanists of several 

 countries, notably by Dr. -Gray, in working up the collec- 

 tions of the Wilkes Expedition, and by Horace Mann, who 

 with W. T. Brigham, collected there during parts of two seasons. 

 The present volume, (for a copy of which we are indebted to Mn 



W 



Sd 



brings together for the first time complete descriptions of the 

 species. The author spent some twenty years as a successful 

 physician among the Hawaiians, and his leisure time was mainly 

 devoted to the preparation of this work, which is a model of care- 

 ful and accurate investigation. The number of new species and 

 varieties described is very great The total number of species 

 included is about i,ooo, oi which 155 are Pteridophyta. It is 

 believed that of these, 115 have been introduced since the dis- 

 covery of the islands in 1779, and 24 others introduced by the 

 natives in pre-historic times. But the most interesting fact given 

 among the statistics of the Flora is, that of the 860 native species 

 no less than 653 are endemic. 



th 



Botanical Notes. 



From the Bulletin of Harvard University ol May, 1888, in 

 e Records of the Corporation, we quote the following: 



"Meeting of March 26, 1888. — The President, at the request 

 of Mrs. Gray, as executrix of Dr. Asa Gray, announced the be- 

 quest of Dr. Gray to the College, as follows : 



*' ' I give and devise unto the President and Fellows of Har- 

 vard College, in trust, to aid in the support of the Gray Herba- 

 rium of Harvard University, all my copyrights of books of which 

 I am tlie author, upon the condition and obligation that the said 

 President and Fellows shall make proper provision for the re- 



