9 



68 • BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JULV 



will probably result in misconception. For example, on p. 464, the inde- 

 pendence of water and solutes in entering the cell is ignored, although it is 

 fundamental; and on p. 489 there is hopeless confusion between rheotropism 

 and hydrotropism, fundamentally different phenomena. 



In the two chapters devoted to ecology, the style is easy and pleasing, 

 but the presentation is altogether too brief and the matter too simple to 

 satisfy elementary instruction in a university. Many would also object to 

 the extreme teleological standpoint. The whole subject of ecology has been 

 making such rapid development that it has become dangerous for one unfa- 

 miliar with the great mass of recent work and literature to venture many 

 statements. 



Perhaps the most noticeable feature from the standpoint of an organized 

 text is the lack of any typographical organization of captions. Of course it is 

 troublesome to coordinate captions so as to express the proper relationships 

 of subjects, but it is extremely desirable in a text for elementary instruction, 



w • 



even m universities. 



After all, the book will stand for a mass of morphological facts, most of 

 which have passed under the author*s observation, illustrated to quite an 

 unusual extent by the author's own drawings, and largely derived in a most 

 desirable way from American material. From this standpoint it is very wel- 

 come, and will doubtless be largely used, as its author intended, for a book 

 of reference.— T. M. C. 



Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum. 



Another volume of this monumental work, projected and edited by Pro- 

 fessor P. A. Saccardo, has come to hand. It is the sixteenth volume,* and is 

 of the same notable size and quality as those preceding. The fifteenth vol- 

 ume, devoted to synonym}', and prepared in collaboration with Professor E. 

 Mussat of Paris, has not yet been distributed, although it was expected to 

 appear in 1901. In the present volume are mentioned 4853 species, repre- 

 senting mycological activity during the preceding eighteen- months, t- ^-^ 

 from June 1899 to December 1901, Complete diagnoses are given of all the 

 species except 490. which came in so late that only a citation could be 

 entered at the back of the volume. There is an excellent species and host 

 index, and a universal index of genera. The total number of species of the 



fifteen volumes now aggregates 52,157. In this volume twenty-seven species 

 are described for the first time, and new names are proposed for five species 

 previously published. — -J. C. Akthur. 



'Saccardo, P. A., Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum; supple- 

 mentum universale, pars V, Auctoribus P. A. Saccardo et P. Sydow. Adjectus est 

 index totius operis. 8vo, pp. 1291, Patavii, 1902. 8l francs. 



