946 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1017 



given to 0."01. The data relative to eclipses, 

 occultations, physical ephemerides and satel- 

 lites, are given in Greenwich time instead of 

 Washington time. The style of type adopted 

 permits the publication of much of the mate- 

 rial in a more condensed form without loss of 

 legibility. 



The preparation of the material for the 

 American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac 

 for 191Y, on the same general lines as the 

 volume for 1916, is now well advanced. 



J. A. HOOGEWERFF 



U. S. Naval Observatory 



BOTANICAL NOTES 



FOREST TREE DISEASES 



A HANDY little field manual for the practical 

 use of foresters has been prepared by E. P. 

 Meinecke, forest pathologist, in the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, under the title 

 " Forest Tree Diseases Common in California 

 and Nevada." In less than 70 pages the author 

 manages to call the attention of the reader to 

 about twenty-five diseases of various parts of 

 the tree, and to give some general notions as 

 to the nature of disease in plants, and the 

 structure of the fungi which cause most of the 

 tree diseases. Twenty-four half-tone repro- 

 ductions of photographs help to make it easier 

 for the young forester to identify the particu- 

 lar trouble he may have in hand. 



ANOTHER TREE BOOK 



Appealing largely to foresters also. Pro- 

 fessor J. H. Schaffner's " Pield Manual of 

 Trees," may well be noticed here. For the re- 

 gion covered (Virginia, Kentucky and Mis- 

 souri northward, and westward "to the limits 

 of the prairie ") we do not know of a more 

 useful little book than this. In about 150 

 pages the author makes it possible for the 

 reader to determine the name and relationship 

 of the native and more commonly cultivated 

 trees of the northeastern United States. It 

 should find a large use in the high schools of 

 the country, and the young forester will find 

 it a most handy book to have in his pocket 

 when he goes into the woods. 



A PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 



In a little more than one hundred pages 

 Professor H. W. Youngken and F. E. Stewart 

 have condensed the principal morphological 

 and taxonomic portions of botany that they 

 deem should be known by the student before' 

 he enters the field of pharmacology. As a 

 hand-book to accompany a course of lectures 

 this little book should prove very helpful, and 

 apparently this was the purpose the authors 

 had in mind when they prepared the text. We 

 imagine that this booklet or one something like 

 it might prove useful in other applications of 

 science, as in agriculture, horticulture, agron- 

 omy, medicine, etc. 



FLORA OF SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON 



More than a dozen years ago Professors 

 Piper and Beattie, of the State College of 

 Washington published a useful little book 

 under the title " Flora of the Palouse Region," 

 and now they bring out a revision and exten- 

 sion of that work as the " Flora of Southeast- 

 ern Washington and Adjacent Idaho." In its 

 present form it makes an octavo book of nearly 

 three hundred pages of close, and rather small 

 type. In all 1,139 species are described, and 

 it should be understood that they are descrihed 

 and not merely indicated by keys, as is so com- 

 monly the case in recent local floras. In fact 

 this is a genuine manual of the systematic 

 botany of a particular region. There is a gen- 

 eral key to the families at the beginning of 

 the book, followed by descriptions of the fam- 

 ilies (with keys to the genera), descriptions of 

 the genera (with keys to the species), and 

 finally good descriptions of the species. The- 

 nomenclature is modern and all specific names 

 are decapitalized. It is a most creditable- 

 piece of botanical work. 



MORE FLORIDA MANUALS 



Some time ago (February 27, 1914) we no- 

 ticed the botanical activity of Dr. J. K. Small 

 in the preparation of manuals of systematic 

 botany, from the ponderous " Flora of the 

 Southeastern United States," to his " Flora 

 of Miami," " Florida Trees " and " Flora of 



