(i8 9 ) 



therefore changed my plan, and the area covered in the 

 present paper comprises the States of Arizona, Xew Mexico, 

 Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, southern Idaho, and that portion 

 of Texas which is west of the mouth of Pecos River or ap- 

 proximately longitude ioi°. There are no oaks in the Cana- 

 dian Rockies nor in Montana * nor northern Idaho. Another 

 oak not included in this paper, viz., J^. acuminata ^ is said to 

 occur in the Guadalupe Mountains of western Texas. This 

 has been omitted as I lack both specimens and reliable infor- 

 mation concerning its occurrence there. 



In working up the material, I very naturally turned to Pro- 

 fessor Sargent's elaborate work, "TheSilvaof North Amer- 

 ica," expecting to rind there most that I needed in the way 

 of literature. I was rather disappointed, however. The 

 drawings are excellent, the descriptions are profuse; but the 

 key is almost useless at least as far as the Rocky Mountain 

 species are concerned ; the limitation of species is in many 

 cases, in my opinion, too broad and too confusing, and the 

 treatments of such men as Liebman, Alphonse DeCandolle, 

 Engelmann and Greene are often simply disregarded. If we 

 add hereto notes made on the herbarium sheets, in the easily ac- 

 cessible collections of Columbia, Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 and the National Herbarium, by men like Engelmann, Greene, 

 Wright, Wooton, Tourney, Wilcox and Havard, who spent 

 years in the region from central Texas to the Colorado of 

 the West, it is strange that such a pretentious work as the 

 Silva should lack so much of definite information from these 

 field botanists and their views. The broad descriptions of 

 <S>iiercus undulata and J^. Gambelii may cover all the forms 

 included therein by Professor Sargent, but does it not produce 

 confusion rather than clearness to enumerate a great number 

 of supposed synonyms, without in any way indicating what 

 these represent ? 



I have seen no specimens of Q. macrocarpa from Mo cita- 



tion of any specific locality in the State where it grows. There are 

 vague references to its existence in the southeastern corner of th 

 however, which is not improbable, as it grows in the neighborii 

 Hills of Wyoming and South Dakota. 



