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REVIEWS 



Howell's Flora of Northwest America* 



The seventh fascicle of HowclTs Flora of Northwest America 

 has now appeared. This finishes the first part, " Phancrogamae." 

 The title is perhaps a little misleading, as the flora does not cover 

 the western part of the British possessions, or Alaska. It would 

 have been moi^e appropriate if the title had been a " Flora of the 

 Northwestern United States," as it is a manual of the botany of 

 Washington, Oregon and western Idaho. Only those who have 

 been actively engaged in writing manuals of systematic botanj' 

 can imagine what such an undertaking means, what difficulties are 

 met with and what an amount of work is needed. If the fact is 

 taken into consideration that Mr. Howell had to woik far away 

 from our large collections and botanical libraries with scared}' an}' 

 other facilities than those afforded b}' his private library and col- 

 lections the excellence of the work is realh' surprising. The pre- 

 liminar}' work on the flora was begun as early as 1882 and in 1 896 

 the manuscript of the first fascicle was ready. A new difficulty 

 now presented itself He could not find in Portland a type-setter 

 who could set the type for such a book, and Mr. Howell learned 

 the trade and set the type himself The first fascicle was issued 

 in 1897 and the others at intervals of a year or two. The book 

 contains 792 pages of compact descriptions and an index of 24 

 pages. 



It is evident that Mr. Howell began the work with the inten- 

 tion of giving descriptions drawn by him from actual specimens, 

 where it was posssible. WMien such were not found in his her- 

 barium he tried to borrow from fellow botanists. In this he did 

 not always succeed and had to reprint the original description. 

 This method of course meant an enormous amount of corre- 

 spondence and was delaying the work. It appears as if the 

 method was partly discardetl towards tlu; end of the work, as it 

 there seems to be more of a com])ilation. This ma}' be said 



* Howell, T. A I'lora of Northwest America. \ oi. i. I'lianerogamae. 8vo. 

 I'p. 1-792 -f- Index. I'orlland, Oregon. 10 Au I903. [Issued in seven fascicles, 

 1897-I9OJ.] 



