region, enumerating 53 ferns and fern-allies, 13 gymnosperms, 

 507 monocotyledons, and 1330 dicotyledons. This makes a 

 total of 1903 forms, which may be either species, named varieties, 

 or hybrids. Such a generously varied flora is obviously explain- 

 ed by the physical diversity of the region, in which prairies, 

 forests, bogs, and dunes are well developed. Forty full-page 

 plates and thirty-six figures illustrate as many species. The 

 names accepted and used are those of Gray's Manual, but names 

 according to the American Code are appended in every case 

 where they differ, according to the treatment in the Illustrated 

 Flora of Britton and Brown. Each species listed is accompanied 

 by a brief statement of its habitat preferences and of some of its 

 known stations. A feature of this part of the book is the keys 

 to the families, genera, and species. These keys are ingeniously 

 constructed to follow lines of least resistance, and should be very 

 useful to amateurs who are interested in identifying their finds 

 easily and quickly. They are not complete, however, stopping in 

 difficult groups at the family, as the grasses and sedges, the 

 genus, as SoUdago and Antennaria, or a subgeneric group, as in 

 Polygonum. A special key is provided for trees in their winter 

 condition, illustrated by six plates showing twigs, buds, and leaf- 

 scars. No distinction is made in typography between native 

 and naturalized species and the text seldom makes their status 

 clear. The largest families, with the number of forms for each, 

 are Cruciferae, 61, Leguminosae, 76, Rosaceae, 94, Gramineae, 

 167, Cyperaceae, 183, and Compositae, 209. 



A review is not complete without some attention to the defects 

 of a book, no matter how heavily they may be outweighed by its 

 virtues. Of typographical errors there are a few, such as psychod- 

 es for psycodes (p. 239) or Dycotyjedons (p. 267). There are also 

 a few inaccuracies of statement, such as terming the fruit of 

 Polygonum virginianum a "bur-like contrivance" (p. 289). The 

 accuracy of the taxonomic interpretation of the Chicago species 

 is also open to question in a very few cases. Undoubtedly it is an 

 advantage, for the purposes of the book, to refer the species to 

 those recognized in the seventh edition of Gray's Manual, since 

 that is followed in nomenclature and is evidently expected to 

 serve as the standard reference for description. It is therefore 

 preferable to know the wild yellow lily as Lilium canadense L. 

 than to follow its recent segregation as L. michiganense Farwell. 



