BOOK REVIEWS 

 Fassett's The Leguminous Plants of Wisconsin* 



H. N. MOLDENKE 



Here is a fine book by a careful and thorough worker. A 

 great many more similar works are sadly needed before we will 

 have any clear and accurate conception of the flora of North 

 America, and it is to be hoped that Dr. Fassett will contribute 

 at least some of these. While the present contribution deals of- 

 ficially only with the leguminous plants of Wisconsin, a great 

 amount of information about the 97 distinct recognized species 

 and varieties of this state, is included which is of great interest 

 to workers in other regions, including our own. Outline maps are 

 included showing the known distribution of each species in 

 Wisconsin, while other maps show the known distribution 

 throughout North America, including, of course, the Torrey 

 Botanical Club range. The material preserved in the herbaria of 

 24 institutions forms the basis of these maps and it is a distinct 

 relief to see here a worker who does not content himself with 

 examination of the material in only one or two herbaria. The 

 24 plates and 59 text figures are excellent in every respect, and 

 are exceedingly well chosen to illustrate the salient points of 

 difference between genera and species so often missed in more 

 pretentious descriptions or illustrations. No less than five sepa- 

 rate keys to the treated genera and species are included: one 

 based on vegetative characters, one based on flowers, one based 

 on fruit, one based on seeds, and one based on epidermal out- 

 growths. The value of such a system of multiple keys will be 

 apparent at once to everyone who has attempted to identify 

 plants either in the field or from material sent in by amateur 

 collectors, when the plants are either not in flower or fruit or the 

 material sent is very fragmentary. 



It is also a distinct relief to the reviewer to note that Dr. 

 Fassett apparently still holds to the old concept of varieties and 

 forms as distinct from the species proper and does not adopt the 



* The Leguminous Plants of Wisconsin. The Taxonomy, Ecology, and Dis- 

 tribution of the Leguminosae Growing in the State without Cultivation, by 

 Norman C. Fassett, with drawings by Richard I. Evans and a study of epi- 

 dermal outgrowths by Catherine Mose. University of Wisconsin Press, i-xiii. 

 1-157. 24 plates. 59 figs. 1939. $3. 



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