140 



All in all, then, the Flozvering Plants and Ferns of Arizona is a 

 splendid contribution to North American botany. One can only re- 

 gret that in so few of these United States has the flora been so 

 thoroughly studied and so precisely depicted; it seems scarcely 

 necessary to say that the total complexities and coherence of the 

 vegetation of our country cannot be grasped so long as the distribu- 

 tion of a majority of its component elements, within so many of 

 the states, is adequately known. Charles L. Gilly 



New York Botanical Garden, 

 New York, N. Y. 



Algae for Undergraduate Students 



An Introduction to the Study of Algae. By V. J. Chapman. Pp. 387. 

 The Macmillan Company. 1941. $3.75. 



In the present volume the author has attempted to prepare a 

 short and relatively elementary text on phycology for undergraduate 

 students, hitherto available treatises being too unwieldly and com- 

 prehensive for such a purpose. The method of presentation, is in 

 general, the "type-method" in which one or more genera are se- 

 lected to illustrate the characters of each family. The book is 

 divided into fourteen chapters, including general chapters on clas- 

 sification ; reproduction, evolution and fossils ; physiology, symbiosis 

 and soil algae. Four chapters are devoted to ecology and distribu- 

 tion, and seven deal with the morphology of the type genera, fam- 

 ilies, orders and classes. References to important original sources 

 are included at the conclusion of each chapter. The logic of including 

 the Conjugales and Charales of the Chlorophyceae in the same 

 chapter with the Xanthophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, Chrysophy- 

 ceae, Cryptophyceae and Dinophyceae may be challenged in some 

 quarters. 



Some curious inaccuracies pervade the book. For example : the , 

 plural of flagellum is given as "flagellae" throughout the text. On 

 page 63, the Chaetophorales are referred to as a ''family." On page 

 72 it is implied that the oogonium of Coleochaete scutata possesses 

 a trichogyne. It is stated on page 102 that in Spirogyra "meiosis 

 takes place when the zygote germinates." "Elachista" is written 

 for "Elachistea on page 145 ; the single tgg of Desmarestia is referred 

 to as "ova" in figure 114. On page 30 species of Oedogonium with 



