66 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



The two Manuals most commonly used are Britton's 

 "F'lora of the Northeastern States and Canada" and Gray's 

 "New Manual of Botany" the latter in its seventh edition. 

 Britton's book has better keys but uses a discredited nomencla- 

 ture and splits the plants into a larger number of species. 

 Grav's Manual is probably somewhat easier for the beginner 

 in spite of its poor keys since it does not make so much of 

 minute differences in structure. Wood's "Class-book of Bot- 

 any" was probably better than either of these for the beginner, 

 but it is now long out of print and only to l)e found in the 

 liliraries of older students. Scarcely second to the Manuals as 

 a source of information are the botanical journals which con- 

 tinually discuss unfamiliar plants or publish new and interest- 

 ing items aliout well known forms. The reader therefore soon 

 has a number of mental pictures of plants which he has never 

 seen but which he is frequently able to identify at sight when 

 he comes upon them later, from their remembered descriptions. 

 Who is there that has passed the initial stages of botany who 

 cannot recall many occurrences of this kind ; indeed, who is 

 there that is skilled in botany who does not, even now, have 

 numerous pictures which are still to be matched with realities ? 

 Every flora has its rarities which both botanist and bo- 

 tanizer are anxious to see, but naturally enough, they never 

 agree as to which are rare. The botanist is quite likely to be 

 attracted to some insignificant specimen whose value depends 

 upon it being out pf range, or a variety of some better known 

 species, but the botanizer is more likely to be in search of 

 such famous plants as the pitcher plant, walking fern, sundew, 

 moccasin-flower, shooting-star, compass plant, ginseng, Dutch- 

 man's breeches, cardinal flower and even trailing arbutus and 

 mountain laurel. How many times have we all made long 

 journeys just to see a single one of these! And how many 



