117 



Such maps could be of the sort recently published by Frank Gates 

 in his "Flora of Kansas" and by Charles Deam in his "Flora of 

 Indiana." They should be compiled on the basis of all the preserved 

 material in all the important private and institutional herbaria in 

 this area, and not merely on the basis of the material in one or a 

 very few herbaria. Such a series of maps would show graphically 

 where members of the Club could profitably botanize. The reward 

 of being able to extend the known distribution of a species or 

 variety in one direction or another in our area ought to provide a 

 sufficient incentive to much worthwhile botanizing and collecting 

 in a region which is fast being changed by the rapid advance of 

 civilization. 



New York Botanical Garden. 



BOOK REVIEWS 

 One More Textbook 



Textbook of Botany. E. N. Transeau, H. C. Sampson and L. H. Tiffany, 

 Harper & Brothers. 1940. $4.00. 



The first botany presented to beginners and the general public 

 was taxonomic; later it became morphology, especially the com- 

 parative morphology of a series of types interpreted by a theory 

 of descent. Recently an attempt has been made to teach a more 

 "biological" botany, to emphasize the functions of plants as a means 

 of formulating a concept of life. Still more recently ecology has won 

 recognition as a teachable point of view and botany has become 

 the study of vegetation and its relations with animal life and human 

 civilization. 



The Textbook of Botany by Transeau, Sampson, and Tiflr'any 

 (though it opens in the good old-fashioned way with a description 

 of a bean seedling) represents, more competently than any other 

 recent text, the most modern approach to "general" botany. This 

 latest arrival in the family of botanical texts is a big book of 812 

 pages, with 424 illustrations, several in color. There are fifty-three 

 chapters, beginning with "Plant Science," "The Parts of Plants," 

 "Learning to Name Plants," "Seasonal Aspects of Plants," and 

 continuing with "The Tissue Systems of Leaves," "A Bit of Useful 



