122 T O R R E Y A 



the author regard all these as unworthy of specific rank ? If so, to what species 

 does he reduce them ? The users of this book are certainly entitled to know. 



The geographic ranges given are not always too accurate. For instance, 

 Castalia elegans is recorded by Muenscher as occurring only in southern Texas. 

 Actually, it is found also in the Big Cypress country of Florida, as Dr. Small 

 has recorded in his Manual (p. 543) and elsewhere. Also, the reviewer won- 

 ders why the genera Lachnocaulon (with 8 species in the United States) and 

 Syngonanthus (1 species) were omitted. They seem to be as worthy of inclu- 

 sion as some of the species of Eriocaulon which are not truly aquatic. Natives 

 of those states will be surprised that Eriocaulon septangulare is not recorded 

 from Maine (where it occurs in at least six counties), Delaware, or Maryland 

 (where it occurs in at least three counties). E. compressum, also, is known 

 from Maryland and Louisiana and E. parkeri from eastern Pennsylvania. 



Short bibliographies of the most pertinent literature are given at the close 

 of most of the family treatments, but a general bibliography at the end of the 

 book would have been helpful. Curiously, there seems to be no mention any- 

 where in the book of the very similar handbook published by Dr. Fassett in 

 1940. 1 



Readers will be fascinated by the figures which Dr. Muenscher gives con- 

 cerning seed weights. For instance, the "seeds" of Trapa natans are about one 

 million times as heavy as those of Stomoisia cornuta, of which it requires 175 

 million to make a pound! Aquatic grass seeds vary from 15,000 to 2,000,000 

 per pound ; sedges from 80,000 to one million ; Xyris from 35 to 50 million ! 

 The widespread occurrence of vegetative reproduction among aquatics and the 

 various means of effecting this, are also admirably presented. 



H. N. Moldenke 

 The New York Botanical Garden 

 New York 



1 Fassett, Norman C. A manual of aquatic plants. 382 pp. McGraw Hill Book Co. 1940 



Flora of Illinois 



Flora of Illinois. By George Neville Jones. The American Midland Naturalist Mono- 

 graph No. 2, edited by Theodor Just, vii + 318 pp. 2 maps. Notre Dame, Indiana : Uni- 

 versity of Notre Dame. 1945. $4.00. 



Up to the time of the publication of this work, no comprehensive treatment 

 of the flora of Illinois had ever been published. As Dr. Blake has recently 

 pointed out, 1 there are only 14 of our states that have a published flora "con- 

 sidered to represent in a fairly adequate and detailed way the present state of 



