A California Trip by Mr. Hastings 



Dr. John A. Small, chairman of the Field Committee, in a 

 recent letter from Mr. Hastings, has been offered a series of field 

 trips for any member who may be in California this coming year. 

 Dr. Small hopes that other members will offer similar trips when 

 away from the local flora area. 



Mr. Hastings suggests that he will be glad to arrange trips if 

 notified in sufficient time. One suggestion is a trip to the Hunting- 

 ton Library with special attention to the gardens with the finest 

 collection of cacti and succulents in the West, together with many 

 fine palms, cycads and other interesting plants. 



Another suggestion is a trip to the famous Rancho La Brea Tar 

 Pits, now a city park, for a study of the pits, their fossils and some 

 of the cultivated plants in the region. Mr. George T. Hastings may 

 be reached at 842 19th Street, Santa Monica, Calif. 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Flora of the Hawaiian Islands 



New Illustrated Flora of the Hawaiian Islands — Book 4. Otto Degener. 

 Degener, Waialua, Oahu, T. H., or Dr. H. N. Moldenke, New York, Botanical 

 Garden, New York City, 1940. 324 pages. $3.50. (The same price as Books 

 1, 2 and 3.) 



George T. Hastings 



Here is a unique work on the flora of a large area, published 

 in parts with no effort to complete the work for families or genera 

 in systematic order, but describing species apparently according to 

 their availability or abundance. In each volume describing 100 spe- 

 cies the arrangement is by families, from number 1, the Ophioglos- 

 saceae, to number 344, the Compositae. For each species a full page 

 is used, on one side a plate showing the habit of the plant, single 

 flowers and such details of structure as may be of most importance 

 to an understanding of the species, the other side of the page gives 

 the names, scientific, English and Hawaiian, and synonyms, descrip- 

 tion with greater detail than in most floras, the type locality, local 

 range, and for plants not native to the islands, the extra range. 

 The commercial use and the part played in the culture of the 

 ancient Hawaiians is also given, often in considerable detail. Thus 

 each page is complete for one plant. In each volume there are 

 included some botanical descriptions of families and genera and 



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