131 



our desert southwest tends to encroach on the prairies and a 

 number of its representatives occur in southwestern Kansas. 

 Lastly, a few plants of the colder deserts of the Great Basin 

 cross the mountains in Wyoming and appear in western Ne- 

 braska. The result is a most interesting assemblage of species, 

 in which plants from many sections of the country are asso- 

 ciated. For example, among the eleven species of Anemone, we 

 find the southern A. decapetala, the eastern A. quinquejolia , the 

 northern A. Richardsoni, and the western A. globosa. 



It is now ten years since Rydberg's Manual for the Rocky 

 Mountains was published, almost twenty since the second edi- 

 tion of the Illustrated Flora, and twenty-four since the seventh 

 edition of Gray. Since then taxonomists have not been idle and 

 much careful and critical work has been done on North Ameri- 

 can plants. Progress has been made in several directions, chief 

 of which are the extension of ranges through discriminating ob- 

 servation, the discovery of new species, and the recognition of 

 differences between well known American plants and European 

 or other extra-limital species whose names they erroneously 

 bore. It is both valuable and refreshing to have this progress 

 brought to our attention in Rydberg's new flora. Thus one no- 

 tices unfamiliar names in the genus Amelanchier, largely due to 

 the careful work of Wiegand, notes that there are two species 

 of the white-fruited baneberries instead of one, and finds eight 

 species of Apocynum, seven of which extend into the Gray's 

 Manual range. This feature makes the book invaluable for all 

 taxonomists between the Alleghanies and the Rockies and im- 

 portant as a reference book for eastern botanists as well. 



The names used in the book excite alternately admiration 

 and exasperation. For years Dr. Rydberg was a staunch fol- 

 lower of the American Code, but in the last year of his life he 

 revised the names in his manuscript to conformity with the 

 newly adopted, but as yet unpublished international rules. For 

 many years, also, he was a strong believer in the segregation 

 of polymorphic genera into smaller groups, and the book before 

 us plainly shows Rydberg's ideas exemplified in many families. 

 Of course segregation is neither a modern idea nor exclusively 

 American. For example, Rydberg recognizes the old segregates 

 of Pinus by Opiz and Necker and of Saxifraga by Haworth, as 

 well as the modern segregates of Astragalus for which he is per- 



