262 The Botanical Gazette. (August, 
teachers, he says: “Botany has, perhaps, been more influenced than 
zoology, as is evidenced by the fact that laboratory work is much more 
general than formerly, and, further, that courses in cryptogamic and 
physiological botany are now given in colleges where attention was 
formerly limited to flowering plants.” Just how an institution, in 
which biology is a nom de guerre for zoology, has been so efficient i 
improving the instruction in botany, is not apparent, and the few in- 
stitutions in which botany, not to specify cryptogamic and _physiolog- 
ical botany, is taught, have zot been supplied from Johns Hopkins. 
CURRENT LITERATURE. 
A monograph of the Fontinalaces.' 
We are glad to note the publication of this work, in which M. Jules 
Cardot endeavors to clear up the perplexing forms of our water mosses. 
The contribution is all the more welcome because the group is Ons 
which has its home in our own country, for of the forty-three species of 
the family, no less than thirty occur in North America, of which twenty- 
one are endemic. 
M. Cardot recognizes six genera, arranged in two tribes. The For 
tinalee include Hydropogon, Cr ptangium, Fontinalis and Wardia; 
the Dichelymez include Brachelyma and Dichelyma. The genus 
Fontinalis of course contains the bulk of the species. The other 
three of the first tribe are monotypic, Hydropogon and Cryptangium 
coming from tropical America, while Wardia belongs at the Cape 
of Good Hope. Brachelyma is revived to receive our Dichelyma sub- 
ulatum, while Dichelyma consists of four species. : 
A notable feature of the monograph isthe mode of indicating the 
rank of the species, They are designated as of four orders. Those ° 
the first order have the greatest assemblage of characters by whi 
they can be discriminated, those of the second order have a smaller as 
n. 
for example, is a specics of the third order, being much m th 
marked than F. antipyretica of the first order. This does away Wl 
Subspecies and is much more satisfactory. Varieties are recognized 
subordinate forms under species of any rank. : : 
_ The full citation of synonymy, exsiccati, and geographical dip form 
tion, and the extended descriptions and remarks all combine to 10 
es Mémoires de 
tribu- 
8vo, PP. 152. Separates 6 fr. 50. 
