CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
An American illustrated flora. 
StupENts of American plants have been wont to regard their transatlan- 
tic associates with envy on account of their numerous helps in determining 
plants. It seems as though no European should go astray in the recognition 
of the plants about him. In America, however, we have, of necessity, accus- 
tomed ourselves to bare texts, expressive as they could be, but not half expres- 
Sive enough. The Gray Manual region is certainly our best known region, 
butto the average student of wild plants there remain in it more plants that 
he is uncertain about than those that he absolutely knows. He probably 
names almost all of them, but the mental question mark is appended to more 
of them than he would like to acknowledge. Most of this has arisen from 
the lack of that clearest of all kinds of presentation, accurate illustration. 
Illustrated works upon American plants have been projected, and have 
advanced to various stages of completion, but even had they all reached 
a happy conclusion they have either been too elaborate for common use 
r too popular to be of scientific value. The work we were waiting for 
was one that should be complete in illustration, scientifically accurate, and 
Still of moderate cost. That such a work has appeared * will be a surprise to 
Many and a great boon to all. 
The field of this work is entirely unoccupied, and its publication marks a 
new impulse in the study of the so-called “manual plants.” The order of 
Presentation, beginning with the lowest forms, is but an expression of modern 
a 
“mae can, the best we know concerning natural sequence. The 
ct policy of multiplying families and genera is followed, these groups 
Brirron, NarHanrer Lorp and Brown, Hon. AppIsoN.—An illustrated flora 
ern United States, Canada and the British Possessions, from Newfoundlan 
lel of the southern boundary of Virginia, and from the Altantic ocean west- 
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1896. . $3.00 a volume. 
a 
