ae BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [ January, 
not be too highly commended. Certainly, it is indispensable to all bot- 
anists who use th? microscope, and we fancy even zodlogists will find it 
useful. 
The Fern Allies. 
Supplementary to “Synopsis Filicum,” and by the junior author of 
its second edition, appears this manual, and for the first time the lower 
pteridophytes of the world are described together in one volume. The 
general arrangement follows much the pattern of the familiar “Synopsis 
Filicum,” but the type is much clearer and the quality of paper used 
much heavier, so that in mechanical execution the work is an improve- 
ment on its predecessor. At the head of each genus is a “clavis” (why 
not “key,” since the descriptions are in English ?), but as its ultimate 
divisions refer to groups containing sometimes twenty species it is notas 
serviceable as it might have been made. The species are classified in 
four orders and eleven genera, as follows: Equiseracz®, 20 species, 
belorging to Equisetum; Lycopopiace®, 98 species, distributed among 
Phylloglossum 1, Lycopodium 94, Tmesipteris 1, Psilotum 2: SELAGINELLA 
since it is stated in the preface to this work that over 700 have been de 
scribed since the last issue of “ Synopsis Filicum” in 1874, and this con- 
tained 2,235, 
under the name of E, imum 
Milde, who examined Lamark’s original specimen. . 
Lycopodium sabinzefolium appears as a variety under L. alpinum, 
less belongs, and §, Ludoviciana, from Alabama and Louisiana, scarce! 
is recognized as a good species, so that the to 
number of our species remains as before. 
The most glaring omission with reference to American speci 
that of two of Engelmann’s species of Isoetes published in his valuable 
monograph In 1882. This work was evidently unknown to the av 
as he fails to mention it with Engelmann’s earlier papers in the sum- 
4Hand-book of the Fern Allies. 
ns, 1887. 
By J.G. Baker, FLR.&., F. LS. 8°, pp. 159. 
