1887. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 89 
Humblebees and Petunias. 
In the October number of the BoTaNICAL GAZETTE I noticed a note 
apart the tissue, which tears easily in a longitudinal direction. ave 
not yet noticed whether the flowers so mutilated are after all fertilized 
y other smaller insects entering the tube. GILBERT VAN INGEN. 
thaca, N. 
CURRENT: LITERATURE 2 
Analytical Key to West Coast Botany, containing descriptions of 1,600 species 
of flowering plants growing west of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade 
crests, from San Diego to Puget Sound. By Volney Rattan. 12mo. 
128 pp. A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco, 1887. 
The author is already known by his “ Popular California Flora,” and 
this is a continuation of the effort to bring the botany of the west coast 
Within the reach of the schools. This “Analytical Key” is preliminary 
toa West Coast Botany for beginners, which is promised within three 
years. Umbelliferse and Composite are omitted, and the more difficult 
monocotyledonous orders, but the names of the other species are placed 
Within easy reach of beginners. This kind of work is very helpful to 
botanical science in general, and we expect it to result in a greater array 
of botanists than ever from the west coast. 
Die natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien, by A. Engler and K, Prantl. Part I. Leip- 
zig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1887. 
This is the beginning of a very extensive and important work, and 
the names of its editors assure botanists that it will be well done. It is 
intended to give an account of all the natural orders of plants, including 
their genera and principal species, and is fully and handsomely illustrated. 
Each order is to be monographed by a specialist, and thus the work will 
hot only be of a high order, but probably completed within a reasonable 
ume. This first part is devoted to palms, by O. Drude, and contains a full 
ecount of their distribution (geological as. well as geographical), eco- 
nomic value, and structure, both vegetative and reproductive. Botanists 
Will watch the progress of this work with great interest. 
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