CALIFORNIAN UMBELLIFERX. 273 
3. e. their Revision of North American Umbelliferz, an excel- 
lent work resulting from what must have been many months 
of careful and persevering toil in the herbarium and labora- 
tory, as well as in those portions of the great living field to 
which they have had access. 
We note with special satisfaction the admission made in 
this monograph, that for limiting genera one may, and now 
and then must, rely upon such obscure and intangible charac- 
teristics as habit—the *'facies" of a plant or an assemblage 
of plants. This is a going back, away beyond Linn:us, to 
the time and to the express teaching of our patron saint in 
botany. the immortal Pitton de Tournefort, who *founded 
genera.” | 
We are less satisfied with Messrs. Coulter & Rose’s neglect 
of matters bibliographical and historical. We think the time 
is coming when the authors themselves will regret having 
encumbered their pages with scores of names, and even some 
synonyms credited to authors who did not make them. All 
this kind of doing is sufficiently disapproved when shown to 
be inaccurate,—untrue to the records of science. But, if our 
monographers have credited “Benth. & Hook.” with many 
things those authors did not do or say, we are pleased to see 
that they have in their own field asserted a judgment of their 
own in many instances, as against the opinions of the learned 
British botanists. They have studied well their Bentham & 
Hooker, but appear to have ignored Baillon’s magnificent 
work altogether; a treatise which we venture to say, no 
student of genera who would be thorough, can afford to neg- 
lect. Thus, our authors have credited themselves and Mr. 
Bebb with the restoration of Zizia, after Mr. Bentham had 
reduced it to Carum. But M. Baillon had made this resto- 
ration and had thoroughly defended the genus, ten years 
before.’ 
The Historical Sketch begins with this kind of an inaccu- 
racy: “The plants of this order were first set apart under 
! Baillon, Hist. vii. 120. 
