Aveust 11, 1899. ] 
total merchantable spruce timber now standing 
would not be equivalent to much over 225,000 
acres of pure spruce forests, averaging 15,000 
feet of lumber to the acre.’’ 
The pines of the forests of the State are five 
in number, as follows: White Pine (Pinus 
strobus), widely distributed over the State ; Yel- 
low Pine (Pinus echinata), in the eastern, south- 
ern and western sections of the State; Pitch 
Pine (Pinus rigida), widely distributed over the 
State ; Scrub Pine (Pinus virginiana), growing 
where other pines will not thrive ; Table Moun- 
tain Pine (Pinus Pungens), common in old high- 
land fields and on the mountains and foothills of 
Hampshire, Grant, Mineral and Pendleton 
counties. ‘‘It is evident,’’? the author says, 
“¢ from available records and present indications 
that at one time, possibly not later than 250 
years ago, the predominating forest trees over 
large areas in the southwestern third of the 
State, as well as in the southern and eastern 
sections, were pine, and that the isolated for- 
ests, and the groups and individuals of the 
white, yellow, pitch, scrub and table mountain 
pines that we find at present, are living ex- 
amples and lineal descendants of extensive 
primitive forests of one or more of the species 
mentioned.’’ As illustrating the rapid destruc- 
tion of the forests, the author says, further: 
‘Tn the present pine areas of the State I would 
judge that ninety per cent. of the merchantable 
pine timber has been removed or has died.”’ 
STUDIES OF THE SPECIES OF EUPHORBIA. 
In a recently published paper issued by the 
Missouri Botanical Garden, Mr. J. B. 8. Norton 
revises the North American species of Hwphor- 
bia of the Section Tithymalus occurring north 
of Mexico. No general work on the North 
American species of the Section Tithymalus_has 
appeared since Boissier’s monograph of the 
genus asa whole in De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus,’ 
published in 1862, although a number of new 
species have been described. Engelmann, and 
recently Millspaugh, studied the genus in this 
country, but the section under consideration 
sadly needed revision at the time Mr. Norton 
took it up, two and a half yearsago, at the sug- 
gestion of Dr. Trelease. As aresult of Mr. 
Norton’s studies, we have here an arrangement 
SCIENCE. 
189 
and description of thirty-six species and twelve 
varieties, accompanied by forty-two well-drawn 
plates. It is encouraging in these days of 
species-making to find that although the author 
is working over a group which has not under- 
gone revision for thirty-seven years he sepa- 
rates but one new species! When it comes to 
varieties he is able to get along with but seven 
new ones, and he calls them varieties and not 
species. Such caution in the treatment of species 
and varieties is to be most heartily commended, 
and we should be glad to see much more of it 
in the work of monographers. The author fol- 
lows Boissier’s system of classification with lit- 
tle modification, and appends a diagram show- 
ing his ideas as to the relationship of the species. 
He makes no attempt to revise our notions as 
to the morphology of the flowers and flower- 
clusters, accepting these as ordinarily treated 
infstandard works. 
BOTANY IN IOWA. 
THE Sixth Volume of the Proceedings of the 
Towa Academy of Sciences (1898) contains nine 
botanical papers, as follows: ‘ Preliminary 
Report on the Diatoms of Iowa,’ by P. C. 
Myers, being a general paper on collecting 
these plants ; ‘Report on a Fossil Diatomaceous 
Deposit in Muscatine County, Iowa,’ by P. C. 
Myers, cataloguing fourteen species ; ‘ Diatoma- 
ceous Earth in Muscatine County,’ by J. A. 
Udden, describing the locality of the preceding 
deposit; ‘Forest Trees of Adair County, Iowa,’ 
by J. E. Gow, illustrated by a map, and in- 
cluding a catalogue of thirty-one species, sev- 
eral of which are mere shrubs, as Dogwood 
(Cornus paniculata), Sumac (Rhus glabra), Elder- 
berry (Sambucus canadensis), Hazel (Corylus 
americana), Wild Grape (incorrectly given as 
Vitis Aestivalis instead of V. vulpina of Lin- 
neeus, or V. riparia of the older manuals); ‘ Ef- 
fects of a Sleet Storm on Timber,’ by J. E. 
Gow, accompanied by photographs of injured 
trees; ‘The Iowa Liverworts,’ by B. Shimek, 
giving a list of twenty-one species; ‘A Pre- 
liminary List of the Mosses of Iowa,’ by T. E. 
Savage, being an annotated list of seventy- 
eight species; ‘Additions to the Bibliography 
of North American Lichens’, by Bruce Fink, 
including ninety-five titles; ‘The Flora of 
