412 Reviews. [zoe 



are seldom catalogued a perfectly appalling vista of changes and 

 uncertainty is opened to the view. It is matter of minor 

 importance, but still to be regretted that Mr. Sheldon should 

 have been so singularly unfortunate in the selection of some of 

 his names. 



The fifth paper is a list without notes, excepting of station, of 

 fresh water Algae. The sixth discusses the alleged poisonous 

 properties of certain Cypripediums, the author concluding from 

 his own experience that C. spedabilc is in his case at least, a 

 strong local irritant. 



Botany of the Death Valley Expedition By F. V. CoviLi.E 

 (Contr. U. S. Nat. Mus. vol. W). This is one of the most impor- 

 tant, as well as the most voluminous contributions to the botany 

 of the Southwest. The chapters on "Characteristics and 

 Adaptations of the Desert Flora " are most interesting, so also 

 are those on distribution in which however must be taken into 

 account the necessarily far from exact information acquired by a 

 single expedition, which will be sufficient reason for differences 

 of opinion not only as to many of the details of distribution, but 

 as to the value of some of the zonal plants selected. The sixt)-- 

 six pages devoted to a list of the species by numbers and to a 

 bibliography might have been omitted as the information con- 

 tained was nearly all embodied in the main list occupying the 

 previous pages. The whole number of species and varieties 

 enumerated including algae and fungi is 1261 a considerable pro- 

 portion of them belonging to the " Greeneian " category, and 

 as the author remarks " It should be understood that the desert 

 region of California of which Death Valley forms a part, does not 

 contain all these twelve hundred species. More than one-half of 

 them were collected either in the Sierra Nevada and its southern 

 continuations, or in the Tulare Plains, areas with vegetation 

 almost wholly different from that of the desert region." The 

 paper would indeed have been of quite as much value if the long 

 catalogue of familiar plants found along the route especially in 

 the valley of the San Joaquin had formed no part. It adds very 

 little more to our knowledge than would a similar list of the 

 plants collected in an expedition from Boston to New York. 



