December 17, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



871 



Many years ago Professor E. O. Wooton, 

 then in charge of the department of botany 

 at the New Mexico Agricultural College, 

 planned a ilora of New Mexico. It was at 

 first expected that the work would be finished 

 in a few years, but various diflSculties arose, 

 while every new locality examined furnished 

 additions to the list of species. Thus, as the 

 years passed, the collections tended to run 

 ahead of the work done on them, and the com- 

 pletion of the flora appeared more remote than 

 ever. Eventually, Mr. Paul C. Standley be- 

 came Professor Wooton's assistant, and 

 through the joint labors of the two the flora 

 made rapid progress; after both had moved to 

 Washington, and were in a position to consult 

 the larger herbaria, it was finally completed. 

 It was then offered to the National Museum 

 for publication, and met with the usual delays. 

 Owing to its great size, it had to be condensed, 

 everything not considered essential (e. g., 

 names of collectors) being cut out. As it now 

 appears, it is a bulky volume, containing an 

 enormous amount of information. The num- 

 ber of species treated in 2,975, but, as the 

 authors state, the actually existing flora is 

 doubtless much greater. Considerable areas 

 in New Mexico have never yet been visited by 

 a botanist, while others have only been superfi- 

 cially examined. Though the "Flora of New 

 Mexico " is necessarily of the nature of a 

 preliminary survey, it forms an excellent guide 

 to the plants of the state, and is reasonably 

 complete for all the better known localities. 

 Each genus is briefly defined, all the species 

 are included in very clearly written keys, and 

 in addition there are numerous remarks which 

 greatly facilitate the ready recognition of the 

 various plants. The type locality, general 

 range and range in New Mexico are given. 

 It would be hard to imagine a more useful and 

 adequate treatment of the subject within the 

 space-limits imposed. After spending many 

 hours in the study of the book, the reviewer 

 finds his admiration for it increasing with 

 greater familiarity, a process the reverse of 

 that experienced in relation to some other 

 works of the same general type. There may 

 be, there certainly are, matters which will re- 



quire amendment, but we appear to have the 

 best presentation which years of study in the 

 field and herbarium, and careful consideration 

 of all the available evidence, can give at the 

 present time. 



The new species found in the course of the 

 investigation have been very numerous, in- 

 cluding members of such genera as Yucca, 

 Agave, Quercus, Clematis, Rosa (two), Ame- 

 lanchier, Padus (six), Lupinus, Rohinia, Rhus, 

 Acer, Garrya, Sambucus, etc., etc. Although 

 New Mexico is bordered by Colorado on the 

 north, it contains a very large number of 

 species not found in the latter state. How 

 many of these are really endemic or pre- 

 cinctive can not be ascertained until the plants 

 of Arizona and Chihuahua are better known, 

 but it is practically certain that several at 

 least are confined to some of the large moun- 

 tain groups. In discussing Wooton's cockle- 

 bur, Xanthium commune Wootoni, it is re- 

 marked that it appears to be a distinct species, 

 but is not placed as such on account of the 

 occurrence of commune and Wootoni burs in 

 a single instance on the same plant. DeVries 

 (" Species and Variation," 1905) grew X. 

 Wootoni from seed, and found it to come 

 true; in his discussion of it he provided a 

 binomial designation. The reviewer, two years 

 ago, found a specimen of X. commune in a 

 greenhouse at Boulder, having several Wootoni- 

 like burs, although no Z. Wootoni has ever 

 been seen in Colorado. We must apparently 

 conclude that X. Wootoni is a valid species, 

 but that commune from time to time varies 

 or mutates to a virtually identical form. 



t. d. a. cockerell 



University of Colorado 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The concluding (October) number of vol- 

 ume 16 of the Transactions of the American 

 Mathematical Society contains the following 

 papers : 



W. V. LoviTT : " A type of singular points for a 

 transformation of three variables." 



J. K. Lamond : ' ' The reduction of multiple L- 

 integrals of separated functions to iterated L- 

 integrals. ' ' 



