REVIEWS AND CKITICISMS. 35 



adjective, but an old-geQeric name. By right of priority, the 

 name of the whole genus is Bebmudiana and not Sisyrin- 

 chium. When Mr. Morong adopts decapitalization^ (which 

 we hope he may never), then he will have to reject the 

 Linnsean specific name and write hermndianum to save the 

 grammar; but for " S. Bermudianum,'' there is no warrant, nor 

 ever will be. It is really a new name and not the Linnaean 



one. 



We are particularly gratified with the treatment which our 



Tradescantia species have received in this paper. There 

 was never, in our judgment, any excuse for the confusing 

 of those southern plants with T. Virginiana. The short- 

 stemmed (often apparently stemless), red-purple-flowered 

 species was actually written up, by the present writer, as a 

 new species, twenty-five years ago, but not published; and we 

 are glad Mr. Morong finds it to have been named and pub- 

 lished by Rafinesciue more than sixty years since.— E. L. G. 



Boiany of the Death Valley Expedition, By Frederick 



Vernon Coville. Government Printing 

 ington, D. C, 29 Nov., 1893. 



Wash 



This is a volume of a character to remind one of the days of 

 the publication of Pacific Railway Survey reports. « is by 

 far the most important volume of this kind which has 

 appeared since the Botany of Clarence King's Expedi ion; 

 and one which, as a careful study in western botany, will not 

 take rank as inferior to that ^ larger and more pretentious 

 volume of twenty-three years since. 



The collection made by the botanists of the Death Valley 

 expedition is a remarkably full one; and the number of new 

 species brought out are sufficient to startle people m Eastern 

 and European quarters, who are prone to thiuk that, after all 

 that has been done upon the botany of the Far West during 

 the last tv^ro generations, little can now remain to be done. 

 But we, who are more familiar with the vastness of the 

 western side oE the continent, and understand how small a 

 portion of it has been botanized over at all, expect such 



results. 



