HO BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [April 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Umtoelliferae 



Botanists everywhere, and American botanists especially, owe a large 

 debt of gratitude to Professors Coulter and Eose for the above work, now 

 issued in its completed form. No order of our plants has been more diffi- 

 cult or was in greater confusion ; and this, of late years, had been vastly 

 increased by the many and often incomplete specimens of new far west- 

 ern species. The authors, at the beginning of their labors, wisely deter- 

 mined to study the better known and less difficult species of the eastern 

 states first. The revision of these was completed and issued in 1887, and 

 to it was appended an excellent paper on the " Development of the Urn- 

 bellifer fruit." In the present issue is given a brief " Historical Sketch " 

 of the bibliography of the subject and a good account of the geographical 

 distribution of the species, with a statistical table appended. The vege- 

 tative organs, the inflorescence and the flower then receive attention, 

 and then follows the final result of their studies of the fruit and its de- 

 velopment. This introduction, as it were, to the systematic portion, closes 

 with some notice of the " characters used in classification," and some per- 

 tinent " directions for collection and study." The first is especially in- 

 teresting because of our authors' low estimate of the oil-tubes of the fruit 

 as a divisional character. They do not use it in the primary divisions and 

 even in the subdivisions it is put almost last in diagnostic importance 

 The '•' strengthening cells " under the ribs of the fruit of many species 

 also receives marked and deserved attention. 



Next comes the "Systematic Synopsis of the Genera " (with an "Ar- 

 tificial Key to the Genera "), and the " Systematic Synopsis of the Species." 

 The former begins with the Caucalineje, thus reversing the usual order. 

 The first series comprises those genera, the fruit of which have the sec- 

 ondary ribs most prominent; but as this contains but 5 of the 59 genera 

 and only as many species, it is the arrangement of the second series con- 

 taining the remainder of the genera (those having the fruit with primary 

 ribs only) which principally concerns us. The primary divisions are three; 

 those genera whose fruit is strongly flattened dorsally (17), those whose 

 fruit is not flattened at all or but slightly (11), and those with laterally 

 flattened fruit (31). The relative strength is better shown by saying that 

 of indigenous species the first division contains 87, the second 35, and the 

 third 91. This arrangement leaves the sequence of genera much as we 

 are accustomed to see it, except as before stated -a notable exception 

 being the placing of Erigenia next to Hydrocotyle. There are 5 new 

 genera, and 3 other genera, not heretofore recognized as represented in 

 our flora, are admitted. 



™ '! ; ; ,, : t ': , '^': IoHN , M - AN£,RoSE .J-N.-Revision of North American Umbellifeno. 8 to. 



1888, 



