24 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
of the physical and geological features of the region 
covered. There follow descriptions of the 51 species 
known to occur there, with a text illustration of each 
and notes as to their habitat, date of discovery in Florida 
and range elsewhere. There are also five half-tone 
plates from photographs by the author, showing certain 
species of ferns in situ. 
Tropical Florida, as limited by Dr. Small, includes 
only the two groups of limestone and coral islands 
known as Keys—one situated in the southeastern part 
of the Everglades, the other off the coast. Their com- 
bined area is a very small portion of that of Florida 
as a whole, and the variety of soil and other physical 
conditions which they present is slight, yet they “ harbor 
more than fifty per cent. of the fern flora of Florida.” 
Of the 51 species recorded (46 of true ferns and 5 of 
fern-allies) only four—Osmunda regalis, Anchistea vir- 
ginica, Dryopteris Thelypteris and Lycopodium adpressum 
—appear in northern floras. The rest are species of 
tropical America, in a very few cases peculiar to this 
region, and in all occurring in the United States only 
in Florida, 
The text illustrations by Miss Mary E. Eaton deserve 
more than a word of praise. In spite of their small 
size, they are excellently clear; and they are both life- 
like and accurate. Sometimes, one suspects, they are 
almost too accurate for the author’s comfort—as where 
the precisely similar venation of Campyloneuron angusti- 
folium and Phymatodes exiguum, as figured, leaves only 
habital characters to separate these two genera and 
casts obvious doubt on their validity. 
Ever since D. C. Eaton’s time, various botanists 
have, on different occasions, expressed their dissatis- 
faction with the current classification of the lip-ferns 
of the southwestern United States, commonly referred 
