58 ERYTHEA. 



feet in the other direction; the number of flowers is 812, the colors 

 pink and white, each flower being on the average eight and three- 

 fourths inches in diameter. The plant is interesting as showing a 

 phase of the progression of cultivated forms in chrysanthemum. 



The desire and the book were happily met when Miss Parsons gave 

 to Californian people, towards the end of the year 1897, her book 

 upon "The Wild Flowers of California; Their Names, Haunts, and 

 Habits." The volume, as the title would indicate, is for the use of 

 those, who possess no botanical knowledge and yet crave the names 

 of the very common and showy plants, many of which in their 

 season color the plains and illumine the hillsides. The classification 

 is based on color — doubtless the most satisfactory arrangement for a 

 book of this kind — and perhaps one-half of the species described 

 are illustrated with full-page plates, of which there are over two 

 hundred. The choice of plants to be included has been made with 

 good judgment; for, although it was possible to describe and illus- 

 trate but a very small part of the flora of California, yet the com- 

 mon plants, which are likely to attract attention on account of their 

 showiness or curious character, the amateur will have little difficulty 

 in locating by aid of the text and the drawings. The drawings are 

 not, however, uniformly satisfactory, being too stiff and "wooden" 

 in some cases, the foliage of Ceanothns thrysiflorus, for example, 

 answering better to a representation of plums than of leaves. It is 

 our judgment that the text is the better product: the untechnical 

 descriptions and notes are origimil and attractive: the background 

 is occasionally colored with the history and romance of California, 

 evidencing the breadth of the writer's sympathies. The species 

 listed, almost without exception, are endowed with common names, 

 which are for the most part pleasing, but there is an obvious 

 tendency, we must say, to overwork "gold" and "golden," and some 

 are so fanciful and highly colored, that they suggest the drawing- 

 room of a city rather than the flower-crowned Coast Ranges, the 

 gun-scorched interior valleys, or the hot, dusty trails of the Sierras. 

 The book is now in its second edition. It is worthy of many 

 more. [Doxey, at the Sign of the Lark, San Francisco.] 



The second fascicle of "Howell's Flora of Northwest America" was 

 issued April 1, 1898. It finishes Rharnnacere, begun in the first 



