THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 127 



plants and the making of herbaria is still a considerable part 

 of the school course in botany. The new book is intended to 

 include only the plants of the Rock Mountain region that 

 bloom before the close of the spring term and has a decided re- 

 semblance to the larger volume on the flora of the Rock 

 mountains issued by Nelson and Coulter. In a book of this 

 nature, with the implied purpose of making the wild plants 

 familiar to the general public, we are inclined to question 

 whether it could not with advantage have been made a bit 

 less technical. Certainly one who knows nothing of the jar- 

 gon of the systematist will find picking plants out by means 

 of this volume, a difficult matter. Under the guidance of a 

 botanical teacher, however, the book ought to be of wide use- 

 fulness. The fact that only spring flowers are included rather 

 adds to its value since the beginner is not confused by a multi- 

 tude of species that bloom at other seasons. Considering the 

 title we wonder why "intermountain" was selected in place 

 of the more appropriate intermontane. The book is issued by 

 Ginn & Co., at 75 cents. 



Another new book attacking botany from the experi- 

 mental side is Frank Owen Payne's "Manual of Experimental 

 Botany." The volume is practically all experiment and each 

 subject is taken up under the rather formal heads of object, 

 apparatus, method, result and conclusion. As might be ex- 

 pected, many of these experiments are likely to be considered 

 too insignificant to be worth while performing but the book 

 is valuable for the wide range of topics given and especially 

 for the bearing of many of them on gardening and nature- 

 study. The teacher may be cautioned, however, against as- 

 suming that all the experiments prove what they set out to 

 prove. The inference on page 137 that a girdled tree dies be- 

 cause the flow of sap upward it stopped is important of true. 

 So is the assertion that the corm of Indian turnip is poisonous. 

 Several other slight inaccuracies of statement may be found 



