134 



which includes 205 species and covers 40 pages. One typo- 

 graphical abnormality of the Illustrated Flora has disappeared, 

 namely, the use of AEsculus for Aesculus. The use of the capital 

 E was both ugly and incorrect and has been dispensed with in 

 the Manual. 



The Engler and Prantl sequence, and the many new species 

 and new names will give to some a feeling of strangeness. He 

 who was brought up to look for the Ranunculaceae on page 1 

 of his botany and now at last locates them near the middle of 

 the book, not very far from the vile Chenopodiaceae ; who must 

 learn to discriminate ten species of Antcnnaria where the early 

 botanists taught him there was only one ; and who used to think 

 that Acer saccharinum meant the sugar maple, when now it 

 means the silver maple — he who has a feeling that unnecessary 

 duties are thrust upon him by these new features must remember 

 that they appear because they are right, and that the old features 

 have been discarded because they were wrong. 



Every botanist from Labrador to the Cimarron must have a 

 copy of " Britton's Manual." He will find it a comfortable book 

 to hold in his hand and a satisfactory book with which to name 

 any plant from adder's tongue to blessed thistle. — Frederick Y. 

 Coville. 



A popular Work on Ferns* 



Mr. Clute has given us a carefully prepared and readable book 

 on the ferns of the Northeastern States, for the subtitle, which 

 reads " A Guide to all the native Species " has a local rather than 

 a national significance and for that reason is misleading. The 

 work includes a combination of ancient folk-lore about ferns, 

 poetical allusions to ferns, mingled with an untechnical statement 

 of their characters, habits, and haunts, not badly written, and pro- 

 vided with a series of accurate structural illustrations. To these 

 are added a considerable number of full-page illustrations, some of 

 them colored. From the artistic standpoint these full-page illus- 

 trations may be correct but as a means of illustrating the habits 

 and especially the habitats of our ferns they are far from success- 



* Clute, YV. X. Our Ferns in their Haunts, a Guide to all the native Species. 

 l2mo., pp. xii, 322. Illustrated. New York. Frederick A. Stokes Company. 



