



1901] CURRENT LITERATURE 359 
of the important species. Miss Marshall has introduced an elaborate key 
at the beginning of the book, designed to lead the reader directly to the 
enus. This naturally presents the complexities inherent in a subject of such 
acknowledged difficulty. One notes some inconsistencies. ‘For con- 
venience,” Craterellus is described among the “fungi with gills,” but even 
then the writer failed to find its place in the key. Such looseness reacts in 
the end on the general worth of the book. Then it seems a pity that Miss 
Marshall should attempt to describe in general language, and sometimes even 
figuratively, structural characters and physiological activities that are funda- 
mental to all careful observations of fungi. Such expressions have a pseudo- 
simplicity, which deceives and misleads instead of enlightening the novice. 
The second work is issued as a Memoir of the New York State Museum, 
by the botanist, Mr. Charles H. Peck. The forty-eighth report for 1894, con- 
taining quarto colored plates and descriptions of edible fungi, was in great 
demand, so that several editions were exhausted almost as soon as issued. 
The forty-ninth, fifty-first, and fifty-second reports, contained illustrations and 
descriptions of thirty-three species. The work of the past year adds four- 
teen species to the list. On account of the great demand for these reports by 
mycologists and mycophagists, the parts on edible fungi are brought together 
to form the present memoir, illustrations and text having been revised when 
necessary. Thus the forty-eighth report with sixty-nine species and the 
present memoir with forty-eight species illustrate to date the edible and 
poisonous fungi of the state. The character of descriptions and plates is 
like that of former reports. The figures are stiff and mechanical in drawing 
and rather crude in coloring. A comparison of the two books in this respect 
shows the great superiority of photographs and half tones over anything but 
the most expert and artistic drawing, and the most expensive reproduction.— 
B. M. Davis. 
MINOR NOTICES. 
THE REPORT of the state botanist of New York for 1899 has just appeared 
in its usual dilatory fashion. It contains descriptions of numerous new fleshy 
fungi, and three colored plates.— J. M. C. 
(E THIRD FASCICLE of Schumann’s Blihende Kakteen (Iconographia 
Cactacearum) has appeared, containing beautiful illustrations of chee - 
cactus longihamatus Gal., E. Monvillei Lem., E. Fordii Orcutt, and £. Knip- 
pelianus Liebn.— J. M. C. 
THE SEVENTH FASCICLE of the first volume of “ Illustrations de la Flore 
du Congo,” by Wildeman and Durand, has just appeared, containing plates 
* PECK, CHARLES H.: Report of the State Botanist on Edible Fungi of New 
York, 1895-1899. 4ta. pp. 133-234. pls. gz-68. Albany: University of the State of 
New York. Igoo, 
