On the other hand, lo refer to a case with which the reviewx-r has 

 some personal famiharity, there is no reason at all for the inter- 

 pretation of the genus Vernonia to include V. noveboracensis and 

 V. glaiica in the Chicago area. And lastly, the reviewer, who has 

 just returned unscathed from Cambridge, although completely 

 without weapons of botanical offense or defense, must take ex- 

 ception to the attitude on page ix that the botanists of the 

 country are divided nomenclatorially into two "more or less 

 hostile groups." Diflferences of opinion and of procedure there 

 are, certainly, but this can by no means be described as hostility, 

 and it is regrettable that an amateur clientele should needlessly 

 be given such an erroneous impression. 



But the book as a whole is a fine production and a joy to look 

 at, and it takes the reviewer back to his own botanizing expedi- 

 tions over parts of the territory and pleasantly recalls his ac- 

 quaintance with the author. 



H. A. Gleasox. 



Two Recent Books on the Vegetation of Switzerland 



American ecologists can get a good idea of the thorough way in 

 which their Swiss colleagues undertake vegetational studies by a 

 perusal of two valuable books recently issued as parts 14 and 15 

 of the Beitrage zur geobotanischen Landesaufnahme, published 

 by the Phytogeographical Commission of the Schweizerische 

 Naturforschende Gesellschaft under the editorship of Dr. E. 

 Riibel. In the first* of these, 209 pages are devoted to a con- 

 sideration of agricultural and forestal conditions over an area of 

 about 430 square miles; in the second, f 760 pages are used for the 

 description of the natural vegetation over an area of almost exact- 

 ly 100 square miles. As a result any reader, no matter how slight 

 his personal familiarity with Switzerland, inevitably feels that the 

 descriptions must be trustworthy and accurate, as well as com- 

 plete and detailed. Thousands of American tourists, many of 

 them botanically inclined, have passed through these two areas, 

 the one including the railway from the St. Gotthard tunnel north 



* Oechslin, Max. Die Wald- und Wirtschaftsverhaltnisse im Kanton Uri. 

 209 pages, 29 figures, map. Hans Huber, Bern, 1927. Price 24 francs. 



t Gams, Helmut. Von den Follateres zur Dent de Morcles. xii + 760 

 pages, 100 figures, map. Hans Huber, Bern, 1927. Price 48 francs. 



