November 13, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



689 



bring it " into accord with the Vienna agree- 

 ment," Accordingly the law of priority is 

 observed, and also that requiring the double 

 citation of authorities in certain cases. 

 These, with the acceptance of the year 1Y53 

 as the date of the beginning of the binomial 

 nomenclature, and the partial decapitalization 

 of specific names, bring about many changes 

 in the form and appearance of the names of 

 familiar plants, so that sometimes one is not 

 quite sure of the identity of particular species. 

 To help such a situation the authors have 

 judiciously introduced synonyms for certain 

 genera and species. 



Although the work is supposed to be rather 

 conservative one notices a surprising number 

 of significant changes in the names of plants. 

 Thus we find Amaranthus, instead of Amar- 

 antus; Nymphaea, instead of Nuphar; 

 Gastalia, instead of Nymphaea; Badicula, in- 

 stead of Nasturtium; Gleditsia, instead of 

 Gleditschia; Acer saccharam, instead of A. 

 saccharinum; Acer saccliarinum, instead of 

 A. dasycarpum; Acer negundo, instead of 

 Negundo aceroides; Psedera, instead of 

 Ampelopsis or Parthenocissus ; Lomaiium, in- 

 stead of Peucedanum-; Brauneria, instead of 

 Echinacea; Agoseris, instead of Troximon, etc. 

 Many minor changes in specific names due to 

 observance of the law of priority may be 

 noticed in glancing through the book; thus 

 we find Populus deltoides, instead of P. 

 monilifera; Carya ovata, instead of 0. alba; 

 G. illinoensis, instead of G. olivaeformis; 

 Fagus grandifolia, instead of F. ferruginea; 

 Madura pomifera, instead of M. aurantiaca; 

 Gymnocladus dioica, instead of G. cariadensis, 

 etc. That the authors have not been carried 

 away by the flood of new " species " is shown 

 by the fact that they enumerate only sixty- 

 five species of Grataegus. They have not been 

 as successful in the genus Viola where they 

 admit forty-five species. Sisyrinchium is 

 allowed thirteen species, in place of the single 

 species in the first to the fifth edition. Yet 

 we are thankful that the authors have held 

 down the species makers to the extent they 

 have, and we take it as an omen of better 

 things in this regard. 



In closing this very general notice of this 

 important addition to the literature of sys- 

 tematic botany we wish to record our opinion 

 that this is the right kind of a revision of 

 such a standard work. It honors the great 

 botanist much more to bring out such a 

 modernized edition than to insist upon retain- 

 ing the original treatment in all particulars 

 as was done in the ill-starred sixth edition of 

 this manual. The spirit of Dr. Gray was 

 always progressive, and it is right that the 

 successive editions of his books after his death 

 should retain this characteristic, as has been 

 done so' well in the volume before us. 



Charles E. Bessey 



The University of Nebraska 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 



The concluding (October) number of vol- 

 ume 9 of the Transactions of the American 

 Mathematical Society contains the following 

 papers : 



G. D. Birkhoff : " Boundary values and expan- 

 sion problems of ordinary linear differential equa- 

 tions." 



A. B. Coble : " An application of the form 

 problems associated with certain Cremona groups 

 to the solution of equations of higher degree." 



E. B. Wilson : " On the differential equations 

 of the equilibrium of an inextensible string." 



Max Mason and G. A. Bliss : " The properties 

 of curves in space which minimize a definite in- 

 tegral." 



Arnold Dresden : " The second derivatives of the 

 extremal integral." 



R. L. Moore : " Sets of metrical hypotheses for 

 geometry." 



" Notes and errata, volume 9." 



The opening (October) number of volume 

 15 of the Bulletin of the American Mathe- 

 matical Society contains : " Construction of 

 Plane Curves of given Order and Genus, 

 having Distinct Double Points," by Virgil 

 Snyder ; " On Periodic Linear Substitutions 

 whose Coefiicients are Integers," by Arthur 

 Ranum ; " Even Multiply Perfect Numbers of 

 Five Different Prime Factors," by E. D. Car- 

 michael ; " The Fourth International Congress 

 of Mathematicians: Sectional Meetings," by 



