THE PLANT WOKLD 239 



information required for that work he decided to embody the results 

 in a more permanent form which miglit prove useful to other workers. 

 Professor Chester has already published in the Annual Report of the 

 Delaware Experiment Station for 1897, a preliminary arrangement of 

 the species of Bacterium. The present work contains descriptions of 

 780 forms. The system of classiffication is chiefly that of Migula, whose 

 great work on systematic bacteriology covers the whole ground in a 

 very thorough manner, and is based upon actual investigations and 

 cultivation of the species described. The present work will no doubt 

 be found useful to students who do not have access to Migula's work. 



A portion of the book is devoted to terminology, which contains an 

 illustrated series of simple terms which much facilitate the description 

 of various characteristics of cultures. The typography of the book is 

 excellent, and it will no doubt find a place among the reference books 

 of most bacteriological laboratories. — C. L. S. 



Southern Wild Flowers and Trees. By Alice Lounsberry. Illus- 

 trated by Mrs. Ellis Rowan. 12mo, pp. xxxi, 570. With 176 plates 

 and numerous text figures. New York, Frederick A. Stokes Com- 

 pany. 



This book is of more than passing importance to plant lovers or to 

 botanists in general. It is the first work of a popular character devoted 

 entirely to our southern wild flowers. We have had a long procession 

 of non-technical floras, each following some distinct and remarkable 

 classification, but the southern limit of all of them has apparently been 

 Mason and Dixon's line. Now we are taken bj^ Miss Lounsberry to the 

 very crest of the southern Alleghenies, and down to the broad expanse 

 of pine barrens, while the familiar flowers of Dixieland smile at us from 

 drawing or from painting on almost every page. 



That Miss Lounsberry 's work has been well done everyone who 

 has read her earlier books will be ready to believe. Her style is attrac- 

 tive, and the scientific information which she presents is accurate, some- 

 thing that cannot be said of many popular floras. In order to famil- 

 iarize herself with southern plant life, the author has traveled exten- 

 sively in the South, and spent some weeks at the Biltmore Herbarium 

 carrying on studies with Mr. C. D. Beadle, its Curator, who contributes 

 an introduction to the book. 



Mrs. Rowan's beautiful drawings are so well known that they re- 

 quire little further commendation. In the simpler studies of blossom 

 and branch she is at her best, a certain faulty perspective becoming 



