•20 THE PLANT WOKLD 



BOOK REVIEWS. 



Catalogue of North American Plants. By A. A. Heller. Second 

 , Edition, Ee\dsed and Enlarged. Lancaster, Pa., 1900 ; published 

 by the author. 



Two years or more ago Mr. Heller undertook the somewhat thank- 

 less task of preparing a check list of the North American flora north of 

 Mexico, embodying the nomenclature of the Eochester code, which had 

 practically supplanted the old individual system. Though hastily pre- 

 pared and rather carelessly revised, the first catalogue served a useful 

 purpose as an exchange list and convenient reference book, and now 

 with riper experience, more extended general studies, and the assist- 

 ance of specialists in certain groups, Mr. Heller has published a cata- 

 logue that is creditable to him in many ways. 



The new book contains 252 pages, and the typography is most 

 attractive in its clearness and proper contrast of fonts. The printing is 

 on one side of the page only, thus affording abundant opi>ortunity for 

 the marginal notes and corrections that everyone finds essential in 

 using a list of this kind. We have observed a few errors, but they are 

 not sufficiently numerous to be a source of discomfort to the reader. 

 The author explains in his preface an unfortunate mistake Avliich he 

 made in numbering the genera according to the sequence of families in 

 Engler and Prantl. We scarcely believe, however, that this generic 

 enumeration is of much value. It would have been wiser to omit all 

 generic numbers and insert author-citations instead. 



Realizing the great deficiency in the first edition of his catalogue, 

 Mr. Heller has added synonyms with much greater freedom, and no 

 one accustomed to the nomenclature of Gray's Manual need have diffi- 

 culty in ascertaining the equivalent of any unfamiliar name. A large 

 number of new combinations are published in the preface, and the list 

 is extended into the pages of Miihlenbergia a periodical elsewhere dis- 

 cussed. Mr. Heller's systematic treatment is drawn on liberal lines, 

 and he has wisely followed, in large and difficult genera, the course of 

 the latest monographers of each particular group. We believe that the 

 work will find a ready sale, and that it will prove an indispensable ref- 

 (•rence check-list for amateur and professional botanists alike. — C. L. P. 



