830 
ago. The botanical results of this visit are 
now published by Alban Stewart, botanist to 
the expedition,’ which has just appeared under 
date of January, 1912. 
The island includes between eight to ten 
square miles and rises often abruptly from the 
water, culminating in a mountain cone 2,788 
feet high, evidently volcanic, but now heavily 
covered with a dense vegetation. The rain- 
fall is abundant, and the temperature ranges 
from 68° to 92° F. Near the shore are coco- 
nut trees, but no mangroves, “possibly be- 
cause of the absence of quiet bays and la- 
goons.” 
The interior of the island is covered for the 
most part with rain forests, in which the vegeta- 
tion is usually so dense that even at midday, with 
the sun shining, the light is almost as diffuse as at 
twilight. 
The trees are large and tall, reaching a 
hundred feet or more. “The largest and 
probably the most important tree from an 
economic standpoint is one which bears the 
common name of ‘IJronwood’” of which 
there are trees on the island “so large that 
timbers 3X8 60 feet could be cut from 
them.” 
In summing up the results of his study of 
the vegetation of the island the author says: 
The flora of Cocos, like that of the Galapagos 
Islands, is distinctly that of an oceanic island. 
The relatively large number of ferns, the much 
smaller number of species in the remaining fam- 
ilies, and the total number of species found on the 
island lend support to this view. The flora is prob- 
ably of much more recent origin than is that of 
the Galapagos Islands. . . . It seems possible that 
the time that has elapsed since conditions on the 
island were suitable for the growth of higher 
vegetation has not been sufficient to stock the 
island by the slow process of seed dissemination, 
over considerable areas of water, with as many 
species as it is capable of supporting. The small 
number of endemic species on the island might 
also point to a relatively recent origin of its flora. 
SYSTEMATIC NOTES 
It is a hopeful sign that from time to time 
Professor Schaffner brings out papers on the 
1 Proc. Calif. Acad. Sct., 4th series, Vol..1. 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 908 
classification of plants, the last of which ap- 
peared in the Ohio Naturalist for December, 
1911. In this he reviews and rearranges some 
of his previous schemes, and adds a synopsis 
of the phyla, classes and subclasses of the 
whole vegetable kingdom. In the latter he 
recognizes fifteen phyla, viz: Schizophyta, 
Myxophyta, Zygophyta, Gonidiophyta, Phoeo- 
phyta, Rhodophyta, Charophyta, Mycophyta, 
Bryophyta, Ptenophyta, Calamophyta, Lepi- 
dophyta, Cycadophyta, Strobilophyta, Antho- 
phyta. The discussion contains a statement 
of principles, one of which may well be re- 
produced here: 
In a word, the whole scheme of classification 
must show the result which has come about through 
progressive evolution, segregation, degradation and 
specialization. 
Another paper by Henry Pittier on “ New 
or Noteworthy Plants from Colombia and 
Central America,” in the Contrib. U. S. 
Natl. Herb., Vol. 13, pt. 12, among other 
things contains a revision of the Artocar- 
poideae-Olmediae of the family Moraceae 
which will interest critical systematists. 
Many good plates and text figures add much 
to the value of the paper. 
In part 1 of Vol. 16 of the same Contribu- 
tions, we find a critical discussion by W. R. 
Maxon, of the systematic standing of a Rocky 
Mountain fern known as Asplenium an- 
drewsti, which may turn out to be an Amer- 
icanized form of the European A. adiantum- 
nigrum. 
Accompanying the foregoing is a “ Report 
on a Collection of Plants from the Pinacate 
Region of Sonora,” by J. N. Rose and P. C. 
Standley, in which are given the botanical re- 
sults of an expedition from the Desert Lab- 
oratory at Tucson in 1907, into a region never 
before visited by a botanical collector. “The 
botanical collections, although small, have 
proved to be most interesting.” Eighty-four 
species are enumerated, of which eleven are 
here described as new to science. Eight of 
the plants in the list are Monocotyledons, of 
which seven are grasses. Ten are Cactaceae, 
while seventeen are Compositae. The fine 
plates add greatly to the interest of the paper. 
