74 



much the same way. Yet most of us evidently consider it 

 unscientific to deliver a paper so that the audience can see whither 

 the evidence is tending. Instead, the author often leads his 

 hearers blindfolded through the various trial by-paths, and when 

 they are thoroughly dazed and irritated by the numerous turns 

 and blind alleys, they are at last brought into the open and told 

 where they are — or where they ought to be! Would any one 

 choose to travel from New York to San Francisco with the names 

 blotted from every station, and a dizzying detour at every railroad 

 center? Somehow we prefer to buy a straight ticket for San 

 Francisco and then to follow our route on our railroad maps 

 station by station. 



And yet we write our papers as if we felt with Barrie's mother 

 that they must be a "manzy of different things all sauced up to 

 be unlike" the sensible, straightforward wa^' of proving a point; 

 as if this natural simple method of exposition would cause our 

 fellow members to "run about flinging up their hands and crying, 

 'Woe is me.'" L. H. E. 



REVIEWS 



Taj'Ior's Flora of the vicinity of New York* 



During the quarter of a century that has elapsed since the 

 publication by the Torrey Botanical Club of the "Preliminary 

 catalogue of Anthophyta and Pteridophyta reported as growing 

 spontaneoush' within one hundred miles of New York Citj',"! 

 knowledge concerning plant distribution within this area has 

 been greatly extended and, especially during the last few years, 

 much of this data has been recorded in several more or less com- 

 prehensive local catalogues. The consummation of the scheme 

 originally projected by the committee on local flora of the Torrey 

 Botanical Club is seen in Taylor's "Flora of the vicinity of New 

 York." The area included by the present work is the same as 

 that covered by the preliminary catalogue. It comprises all of 

 the states of Connecticut and Xew Jersey and the parts of New 

 York and Pennsylvania within a radius of slightly more than one 

 hundred miles from Xew York City. The general plan of the 



* Mem. N. Y. Bot. Garden 5. vi-i-683 pages. 9 maps. 30 Jan. 1915. 

 t Pp. xviii-t-90. Map. New York. 1888. 



