J 44 



More interesting is the case of the cypress. Dr. Coker avoids 

 mentioning the technical name of this tree in the first 33 pages, 

 and then in the four places where he does designate it specifically 

 he calls it Taxodium distichum. On page 44 he implies that the 

 only difference between our two eastern species (or varieties, as 

 some still prefer to call them) of Taxodium is in the leaves ; thus 

 completely ignoring the differences in bark, buttresses and habitat 

 pointed out by the reviewer in one of our best-known botanical 

 journals in 1902 and 1905. The tree shown in his plate 12 is 

 easily identified by its bark and surroundings as T. imbricarium 

 (or T. adscendens, according to the Vienna rules of nomenclature) ; 

 and one cannot be certain from his descriptions of the vegetation 

 that typical T. distichum occurs there at all. 



The notes on the distribution of each species average not more 

 than two lines each. Assuming the index to be complete, it 

 appears that over 40 per cent, of the species listed are not men- 

 tioned in the ecological part of the work, so that we are given 

 very little information about their habitats and associations. 

 Many of these 40 per cent., however, are weeds, which the author 

 did not undertake to classify by habitat. 



This work, especially the systematic part of it, is one of many 

 recent examples that go to show how few people there are in the 

 world at the present time who can write about a large number of 

 plants and name them all correctly. The accurate determination 

 of plants seems to be gradually becoming a lost art, and botanical 

 text-books have almost ceased giving instructions in it. The 

 ranks of the systematists are being decimated by desertion and 

 death, and there are very few new recruits these days. (Even 

 the present reviewer, who used to be primarily a systematist, 

 has lost interest in nomenclatorial refinements, and now cares 

 little for minute specific characters which are not visible from 

 a moving train.) Roland M. Harper. 



Blakeslee and Jarvis' Trees in Winter* 



The title Trees in Winter suggests for the book under con- 



* A. F. Blakeslee and C. D. Jarvis, Trees in Winter: Their Study, Planting, Care, 

 and Identification, pp. 1-466. [Illust.] The Macraillan Company, New York. 

 Price S2.00. 



