200 

 REVIEWS 



Britton and Rose's Cactaceae* 



The recent death of Andrew Carnegie, who lived only a few 

 weeks after this volume was issued, recalls the publication of 

 Carnegiea gigantea in 1908, when the senior author first associated 

 the iron master with the cactus family. To many the assign- 

 ment of his name to the giant cactus appeared at that time a 

 doubtful compliment either to the cactus or to Mr. Carnegie. 

 It is not without interest, then, that the chief agency which he 

 set up for the advancement of science should have sought out 

 the authors of the present great volume who have abundantly 

 justified the wisdom of that association. For the Carnegie 

 Institution has issued, and the authors have prepared, the most 

 sumptuous botanical publication since Dyke's "The genus 

 Iris." 



The book, as was to be expected, deals with the systematic 

 botany of the cactus family, but more thoroughly than any other 

 as yet issued. The only other work of monographic pretensions 

 is Karl Schumann's Gesamtbeschreibung der Kakteen issued in 

 1903. As an illustration of the difference in the volumes, 

 Opuntia proper in the new book contains 254 species, in the 

 old one, 162. Not all of the increase is due to the newer taxon- 

 omy; in fact a surprising amount of it is due to exploration, and 

 to the consequent discovery of new kinds of prickly pears. This 

 group occupies the major part of the volume, and segregates 

 from it, with Pereskia, the whole of it. The extent of the ex- 

 ploration, from British Columbia to the Argentine, its com- 

 prehensive nature, including hundreds of the islands and keys 

 of the West Indies, its personnel which has included nearly all 

 the botanists with tropical experience in the United States and 

 many of our South American and West Indian neighbors, — this 

 has given the authors who have done a tremendous amount of 

 exploration themselves, an opportunity for comparative study 



* Britton, N. L. and Rose, J. N. The Cactaceae. Descriptions and Illustra- 

 tions of Plants of the Cactus Family. Vol. i, pp. 1-236. Plates 1-36 (many in 

 color), figs. 1-303. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 248. 

 21 June 1919. Price $18.00. 



