1897 ] CURRENT LITERATURE 61 
Mr. JAMES M. Macouwn’s “List of plants known to occur on the coast 
and in the interior of the Labrador peninsula” includes only spermatophytes 
and pteridophytes. We hope that ere long botanists will use a less compre- 
hensive term than “ plants’’ when they mean to omit half the subkingdoms 
from consideration. The list is reprinted from the eighth volume of annual 
reports of the Geological Survey of Canada.—C. R. B. 
THOSE WHO wish to make exchanges in cryptogams or purchase them will 
do well to consider the terms and inspect the list of the Vienna Bureau of 
Exchange managed by J. Brunnthaler (Igelgasse 11, Wien IV, 2). The list 
for 1897 contains over 3000 species. A most reprehensible practice is the 
publication of diagnoses of new species in a department entitled “ Wissen- 
schaftliche Notizen.’’ Thirteen new species of fungi are included in this 
year’s issue, with no indication that they have been described elsewhere. We 
hope Herr Brunnthaler will prohibit this in future—C. R. B 
IN ADVANCE of the eighth Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical 
Garden, we have the first of the scientific papers, an enumeration by M. Jules 
Cardot of the mosses of the Azores and Madeira, based upon the list of 
Mitten (1870) and the collections of Trelease and others in 1894-5—6. Eighty 
Bryales and eight Sphagnales are now known from the Azores, of which nine 
are new. These are characterized, and figured on eleven plates photo-en- 
graved from the author’s drawings. Nineteen Bryales are listed from Madeira, 
collected by Trelease in June 1896, of which one is new.—C. R. B. 
THE EXTRAORDINARY development of the water hyacinth (Piavopus cras- 
Sifes Britt. or Eichhornia crassifes Solms) in the St. Johns river, Florida, 
interferes so seriously with navigation that bills have been introduced in Con- 
§ress to provide for its eradication. Information on the subject of its intro- 
duction, present distribution, and effects on navigation have been gathered 
by Mr. H. J. Webber under the direction of the Department of Agriculture 
and is embodied in a bulletin (no. 13) of the Division of Botany. Fortunately 
the plant is confined to the river named, its tributaries, and a few inland 
lakes and ponds, but it is a real menace to boats, even to the largest steamers, 
in the river south of Palatka.—C. R. B 
THE DAHLIA has for many an interest almost as great as the chrysanthe- 
mum. Florists who are growing it will be especially interested in a little 
book which has just been published as one of the series known as Dobbie’s 
Horticultural Handbook.? In it will be found chapters on the history of the 
dahlia, by Richard Dean, F.R.H.S.; the botany of the dahlia, by John Bal- 
lantyne ; its propagation and exhibition, by Stephen Jones; its cultivation, by 
*The dahlia; its history and cultivation. 12mo. pp 81, pl. 9. fg. 7. London 
and New York: The Macmillan Co., 1897. 75 cents. 
