BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Flora of California. — The third part (the second in systematic 

 consecutiveness) of Jepson's Flora of California, 1 which has just appeared 

 contains the families from Gnetaceae to the beginning of Cyperaceae. 

 Much the larger part (124 pages) is devoted to the Gramineae, and is 

 contributed by Hitchcock. He recognizes 71 genera and 324 species, 

 a considerable increase over the 62 genera and 174 species enumerated 

 by Thurber, in 1880, in the Botany of the Geological Survey, the last 

 work which embraced the flora of the entire state. To a certain extent 

 this represents a difference in the conception of taxonomic values, but 

 mainly it illustrates the fuller knowledge of California plants which has 



been attained in the last thirty years. Another interesting comparison 

 may be made with the Gramineae of the seventh edition of Gray's Man- 

 ual, where the family is elaborated by the same hand, and at a contem- 

 porary date. The number of genera there included, 83, is larger but 

 the number of species, 246, is much smaller. It is certainly unexpected 

 to find that the grass flora of the single state of California is so much more 

 diversified in species than that of the far larger region included in the 

 Manual. These comparisons are still further emphasized in the sub- 

 joined table of those genera which are accredited in Jepson's Flora with 



1 Jepson, Willis Linn, A Flora of California. Part 3. Gnetaceae to Cypera- 

 ceae {Cyperus). Gramineae, by A. S. Hitchcock. Pp. 65-192. San Francisco, 

 Cunningham, Curtis and Welch, 1912. ($1.50.) 



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