CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Rusts of Switzerland. 
THREE NOTABLE WORKS on plant rusts have appeared within a year: KiE- 
BAHN’s Wirthswechselnde Rostpilze, the first volume of Sypow’s Monographia 
Uredinearum, and FiscHer’s Die Uredineen der Schweiz. Each of these works 
covers a distinct field, and in its own way marks advance in the elucidation of the 
world’s rust flora, and in an understanding of the problems connected therewith. 
The last named work,? although embracing a limited region, is conceived upon 
such a broad plan, and carried out with so much completeness, that it serves as 
the best model yet produced for a uredineous manual. 
A large number of the species found in Switzerland are cosmopolitan. Every 
species is described in detail, and with few unavoidable exceptions direct from 
specimens, and is also illustrated with outline drawings. The descriptions are 
especially full, embracing not only the usual characters, but those derived from the 
pycnidia, the peridial cells, and the germ pores. The illustrations are drawn to a 
uniform scale, and are skilfully made. Often a dozen or more teleutospores are 
shown. Usually uredospores are included, and always drawn in a norm 
upright position, a most commendable innovation. In most cases a transverse 
section of two or more peridial cells shows their varying thickness of wall and 
sculpturing, another helpful innovation. 
The notes which follow the diagnoses, briefly stating how much is known of 
the life history of the species, are helpful and suggestive. The list of Swiss stations 
for each species is more especially of local value to collectors. 
The systematic arrangement is essentially that of DreTeL in ENGLER and 
PRAnTL’s Pflanzenfamilien. Under the genera the species are distributed by 
hosts and morphological characters, with a view to showing relationship. A 
general key on the same basis is provided, together with excellent indexes, and a 
full modern bibliography. 
chapters are of unusual interest to the general mycologist. In one the 
distribution of the Uredineae in Switzerland is analyzed and discussed, taking 
into account the ecological factors controlling the hosts. In another the general 
classification and the grouping of species within the genera are considered in the 
light of the most probable hypotheses regarding the phylogenetic descent — 
rusts. And in the third the difficult questions regarding the value of various 
Sy =e, ee ee, AN 5 1: ee es ie } Pp 
recente = 
LCo 
1 FiscHer, Ep., Die Uredineen der Schweiz. Beitr. z. Kryptogamenflora one 
Schweiz. II? imp. 8vo. pp. xciv+590. figs. 342. Bern: J. K. Wyss. 1904- 20 4 Z 
MAY 
379 
