1900 | CURRENT LITERATURE 289 
PROFESSOR F. LAMSON-SCRIBNER has published the second part of his 
American Grasses as Bulletin 17 of the Division of Agrostology. It will be 
remembered that every species is illustrated. Part | contained illustrations 
of 302 species, and Part II adds 325. The interesting statement is made 
that of the 627 species now illustrated, ‘19 may be regarded as characteris- 
tic of the Atlantic coast region, 83 of the region of the Gulf of Mexico, 92 of 
the southwest, including the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and 
southern California, 74 of the states of California, Oregon, and Washington, 
and 61 of the Rocky mour tain region, of which 19 may be regarded as more 
properly the prairie species of that region.” This series will certainly prove 
very useful in the identification of grasses, a family usually left to the expert. 
Bulletin 21 of the same division contains a revision of the North Ameri- 
can species of Chetochloa, by F. Lamson-Scribner and Elmer D. Merrill. 
In our older manuals the name was Se¢aria, and the three or four introduced 
species are very familiar. The name Setaria being untenable, the plants 
were called Chameraphis Kuntze, not R. Br., and then /rophorus Nash, not 
Schlecht, and now Chefochioa Scribner. In North America there are twenty- 
eight species of the genus, six of them being described as new in this bulle- 
tin. There are twenty-three natives, and of the five introduced European 
species three are cosmopolitan weeds.— J. 
THE two previous fascicles of the Flora of the West Indies® have already 
been noticed in this journal. The third fascicle, just published, completes 
the first volume, making a book of 536 pages, and contains the following 
papers; Botanical bibliography of the West Indies, by Urban; Araliacee, 
by Urban ; Polygonacee, by Lindau; Asclepiadacee, by Schlechter; new 
Species, especially Porto Rican, by Urban; Eriocaulacee, by Ruhland ; Jun- 
cacee, by Buchenau; and Sabiacee, by Urban. Some conception of the 
unworked condition of the West Indian flora may be gained from the fact that 
Urban’s paper on the new species (especially Porto Rican) occupies over 190 
pages. Syngonanthus is a new genus of Eriocaulacee, containing three 
Species formerly referred to Papalanthus. 
e first fascicle of the second volume contains a supplementary paper 
(7 pp.) by Urban upon the botanical bibliography of the West Indies, twenty- 
seven titles being added. The rest of the fascicle (153 pp.) contains the 
ne peraceze, by C. B. Clarke, twenty-four of the twenty- -six genera being pre- 
ented. The large genera are Rhynchospora (56 spp-), Scleria (30 spp.), 
piceu (27 spp.), Eleocharis (27 spp.), and Mariscus (21 spp.), the great 
genus Carex being represented by only six species.— J. M. C. 
°UrBan, IGNatius: Symbol Antillana seu fundamenta flor Indi occideh- 
Vol. L. LII, pp. 385-536; Vol. II. fase. I. pp. 1-160. Berlin: Gebriider 
Borntreger, 1 
talis. 
