THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 117 



I 



however, appears to be a new species or variety and will be 

 pointed out to the Forester in due time. In treatment the 

 book follows the general run of tree-books. There are illus- 

 trations of the leaves, flc^wers, fruits and other parts, made 

 from photographs of herbarium specimens, descriptions of the 

 trees in untechnical language, a careful account of the dis- 

 tribution of each species, and various remarks concerning the 

 uses of the wood, peculiarities of distribution, and similar 

 matters. The perplexing genus Crataegus has been written 

 up by W. W. Eggleston, an authority on the subject. The 

 book has many points of interest and should be of value, not 

 only to residents of the State but to students in the surround- 

 ing States as well. 



* * * 

 The average man reacts to the sight of a new plant by 

 first asking its name and then what it is good for. If the 

 specimen happens to be an edible plant, he will be pretty sure 

 to find an answer to his second question in Sturtevant's "Notes 

 on Edible Plants" recently issued by the Department of Agri- 

 culture of New York State. The compiler of this list, the 

 late Dr. E. L. Sturtevant was well known to an older genera- 

 tion as a man deeply read in the subject of economic botany, 

 who had spent almost a lifetime in the study of useful plants. 

 During his life he published many papers on the general sub- 

 ject, but his greatest work, a list of the food plants of the 

 world with notes, was left unfinished and after the lapse of 

 some twenty years has now been arranged and edited by Dr. 

 U. P. Hedrick. This forms a quarto volume of nearly seven 

 hundred pages. In it, the plants are arranged alphabetically 

 by genera. The nomenclature is that of "Index Kewensis" 

 and therefore for the most part free from the changes that 

 have made the nomenclature of the last c|uarter century more 



