173 



South America, including one endemic to the island of Trinidad ; 

 one, an outlying member of the genus, in Mexico ; and the re- 

 maining species, ten in number, are confined to the West Indian 

 Islands. Of these last, two are rather generally distributed 

 throughout the islands ; of the eight remaining species, five are 

 peculiar to the island of Cuba, one to the island of Martinique 

 and two to Porto Rico. Thus, while the genus is widely dis- 

 tributed in the West Indies, the species are found to be extremely 

 local in their distribution. 



George V. Nash. 



New York Botanical Garden. 



REVIEWS 



A New Work on Ferns* 



Dr. Waters has clearly outstripped all competitors in the task 

 of producing a popular work on ferns, and, by adapting photog- 

 raphy to the illustration of structure as well as form, he has 

 succeeded in giving us really superb illustrations. Not only the 

 habitat and environment of ferns, but leaf form and even the 

 characters of sporangia, sori, and indusia are made to stand out 

 in life-like relief. Unlike many works of a popular nature this 

 one is thoroughly scientific and reliable in statement, and while 

 fancy and folk-lore regarding ferns have been introduced they do 

 not mar in any obtrusive way the value of the book. In the 

 eighty full-page half-tones and the one hundred and fifty small 

 illustrations, most of which also are half-tone reproductions of 

 photographs, we have abundant illustrations of all the species of 

 the Northeastern States so that one can easily identify all the 

 common species from the illustrations alone. Details of fructifi- 

 cation are beautifully brought out so that practically all that an 

 ordinary hand-lens would give the observer is represented on 

 these pages. Analytical keys based on the fructification and on 

 the characters of the stipe are included. On the latter subject 

 the author has hitherto made a valuable scientific study, the results 



* Ferns : A Manual for the Northeastern States. By Campbell E. Waters. Square 

 8vo., pp. xi + 302. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1903. 



