175 



the result of his long and careful stu(l>- of the Northwest flora. 

 The hook has been adopted for use by the schools of the Province,' 

 and in fact grew out of Professor Henry's desire to provide for 

 >'OUthful students of the local flora a guide such as in his own 

 youth he was unable to secure. The limitations of a school 

 text have of course made it impossible for him to enter into 

 technical taxonomic discussions, to give detailed statements 

 of geographical range, or to confirm the included species by lists 

 of specimens examined; but the descriptions are full and accurate, 

 the keys carefully constructed, and a considerable number of 

 new species and varieties are added to those already known to 

 exist. 



The author displays a sound and sane conservatism, and has 

 not looked with fa\"or on the minuter classification of the Xorth 

 American Flora. The tendency toward excessive subdivision 

 of genera and multiplication of species has gone very far in the 

 last two decades, and must, to use Professor Henry's words, 

 "soon give place to the broader conception of what the 'lumper' 

 considers constitutes a species." We accordingly find that 

 many recently proposed genera are restored to their original 

 position. Piperia and Limnorchis are replaced in Habenaria, 

 Batrachiiim in Ranunculus, Gormania in Sedum, Comarum, 

 Dasiphora, Argentina and Drymocallis in Potentilla, Sieversia in 

 Geiim, Anogra and Onagra in Oenothera, Oxycocciis in Vaccinium, 

 Harrimanella in Cassiope, Collomia in Gilia, Thalesia in Orohanche, 

 Rapuntium in Lobelia, Eucephalus and Machaeranthera in Aster, 

 and Ptilocalais in Microseris. Perhaps an excess of conservatism 

 is shown in the return of Schizonotus to Spiraea and Navarretia 

 to Gilia; but on the whole the tendency is toward a thoroughly 

 sane conception of taxonomic relations. This is further illus- 

 trated by the refusal to recognize the recent union of Papaver- 

 aceae with Fumariaceae and Lobeliaceae with Campanulaceae, 

 or the attempt to segregate Rosaceae into a group of too-closely 

 related families. The nomenclature is throughout that of the 

 International Rules, in strong contrast to the prevailing tendency 

 among Western botanists to adopt the provincialities of the so- 

 called "American" Code. While the Rules adopted at Vienna 



