7o BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JANUARY 
The African flora. 
OF ENGLER’s great work on the genera and families of African plants? 
the third fascicle has appeared, containing the synopsis of the Combretacee 
(17 genera, of which 10 are African) and the elaboration of the genus Com- 
bretum, by Engler and Diels. This family of the African flora is particularly 
interesting not only because it contains a large number of species of Termi- 
nalia and of Combretum (184 of the latter are here described, of which 78 
are new), but because many of the species are strongly localized, with marked 
differences between the eastern and western types, and because of the com- — 
plete absence of a natural grouping of the African species of Combretum. 
For this monograph the authors have been able to lay under contribution 
not only the unrivaled collections of the Berlin herbaria, but also the rich 
African collections at Ziirich, Rome, Brussels, Coimbra, Hamburg, and Kew. 
The work is beyond praise. Thirty elegant plates illustrate it. Since it 
includes not only a synopsis of all the genera of the family, but also a dis- 
cussion of the distribution of the various groups, African and other, of the 
genus Combretum, the direct usefulness of this monograph will not be con- 
fined to those herbaria which include African plants. It will be indispensable 
to all taxonomic libraries. 
WE HAVE previously noticed the publication of the ///ustrations of the 
flora of the Congo, of which three fascicles with 36 plates have already 
pi. One new genus, Stivoneurum (Sapotacee), is 
established by Radlkofer. The ra 
ora is shown by the fact that the number 
in 1890 was only about 300. 
It is a valuable work that the 
one series of publications all tha 
terra incognita.— C. R. B 
ENGLER, A.: Monogra 
III. Combretaceze — Conbretum, bearbeitet von A. Engler und L. Diels. 4to. PP: 
iv-+ 116. pls. 30. figs. 1. Leipzig : Wm. Engelmann. 28 
3 WILDEMAN, EM. DE et DuRAND, T 
séries IL, Contributions a la flore du Conge. Tome I, Fascicle 1. 4to. pp» !¥ 
72. Bruxelles: Charles Vande Weghe. July 1899. 
pid increase of our knowledge of the African : 
of plants known from this region : 
government is doing to gather together into — 
t is being discovered regarding this hitherto 
phien afrikanischer Pflanzen-Familien und -Gattunge® 
H.: Annales du Musée du Congo. Botaniqué, 
