144 The Ottawa Naturalist. [February 



cases and while not attempting to label all the species with English 

 names they are given for all genera and for most of the more widely 

 distributed species. 



All Canadian botanists owe a great debt to Dr. Rydeberg for 

 having so widened the scope of his flora that few plants will be found 

 in western Canada, east of the Selkirk Mountains and south of the 

 Arctic Circle, that are not described in it, for while he fixed on Lat. 

 56 as the northern limit of the territory covered by his book this takes 

 the collector north of the prairie country to regions where the ordinary 

 woodland species predominate, and in the Rocky Mountains north of 

 Lat. 56 the flora does not differ greatly from that of the mountains 

 further south except that the number of species is smaller. It was 

 too much to expect that all the species known to occur in Canada 

 between Manitoba and British Columbia should have been credited 

 to the Dominion by one who had to some extent to depend upon others 

 when recording the range of species, but the omissions are surpris- 

 ingly few and with rare exceptions these species will be found recorded 

 from adjacent Dakota or Montana. Local botanists in Saskatchewan 

 and Alberta cannot do better than compile from Dr. Rydberg's Flora 

 lists of the species recorded there from these provinces, and working 

 from these lists additions should be recorded as found. 



The writer regrets, and most Canadian botanists will agree with 

 him, that the nomenclature used by Dr. Rydberg is not that used by 

 Canadian government botanists who follow as closely as possible the 

 so-called Vienna Rules. The names used in Dr. Rydberg's Flora are 

 for the most part those called for by the "American Code" and the 

 names of many of the commonest species will appear strange to those 

 who have been using Gray's Manual, the book upon which most non- 

 professional Canadian botanists, even in the prairie country, depend 

 for the knowledge of Canadian species. Dr. Rydberg has, it is true, 

 included in the synonymy, in most cases, the name by which species 

 should be called under the Vienna Rules but as there is nothing to 

 distinguish such synonyms from others the student who is working 

 without other books must for the time at least adopt Dr. Rydberg's 

 names. Not many Canadian botanists either will care to follow Dr. 

 Rydberg in his sub-divisions of genera but this is more or less a 

 matter of individual judgment and taste. Many who are willing to 

 separate Pulsatilla from Anemone or Atragene from Clematis will 

 balk at breaking up Saxifraga into eight or more genera or Habenaria 

 into five. Just now, however, questions of nomenclature are of minor 

 importance compared with the collection and study of plants and there 

 can be no doubt that the publication of Dr. Rydberg's Flora will give 

 a great impetus to the study fli^^tf^y in western Canada. 



J. M. M. 



