438 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
Underwood's Our native ferns and their allies have been the only works of suffi- 
cient scope to include this territory. The former is more than twenty years old, 
and the latter is essentially a popular treatise in which there are no citations, 
As a consequence, a list of the known ferns and their synonymy has been a 
desideratum for some time, and this Mr. Maxon has supplied. Besides his 
careful bibliographic work, the author has included the recorded geographic 
range of each species, thus adding very materially to the value of the list. 
What may be called the Underwood nomenclature and sequence are fol- 
lowed.—J. M. C 
A LABORATORY MANUAL has recently been published by F. E. Clements 
and I. S. Cutter. It is of special interest as being “(an authoritative expres- 
sion from the Department of Botany of the University of Nebraska upon the 
kind and amount of elementary botany that should be taught in the accredited 
schools and colleges of the state.” The directions for work are clear and 
compact, and based upon long experience in handling the material. Granted 
that such material is best suited to high-school courses, no exception can be 
taken to the way in which it is presented. A question might be raised, how- 
ever, as to the ‘‘kind of elementary botany” that this book calls for. To start 
high-school pupils with a short course in histology is probably not commended 
now as much as formeyly. The part devoted to structure and classi- 
fication would seem to be a more fitting introduction to the use of plant 
material. A good set of physiological experiments is also included, and it is 
interesting to note that a certain amount of work in ecology is called for. The 
book must be of great service to the schools of Nebraska in so far as it relates 
them to the work of the University.—J. M. C 
THE PROCEEDINGS of the twenty-first meeting of the Society for Promo- 
tion of Agricultural Science, recently distributed, form a volume of 183 pages, 
containing articles of botanical interest. The president's chair was occu- 
pied by a botanist, W. J. Beal, of Michigan, but the annual address dealt 
chiefly with matters of general interest to the society. A ‘syllabus for a 
short course on grasses and other forage plants” by the same person is 0 
decided pedagogical value. “The development of a tomato hybrid” by W. 
M. Munson is an account of the production of a desirable hybrid variety by 
crossing the common and the currant tomato. “The chemical function of cer- 
tain soil bacteria’? by Frederick D. Chester, “Seven years of experiments 
with bush beans” by Byron D. Halsted, ‘‘ The value of willows in retaining 
the banks of streams” by W. W. Rowlee, “ The course in cryptogamic 
botany’’ by L. H. Pammel, “The weedy plants of Iowa,” also by Mr. Pam- 
mel, contain botanical matter with practical applications of the facts. H. L. 
= corrects some errors of microscopic interpretation occurring in his 
A laboratory manual of high school botany. 8vo. pp- 123. Lincoin, Nebraska: 
The Peron Publishing Company. 1900. 
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