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authors have both held the chair of botany in the State College 

 of Washington for about a decade each, from 1 893-1 903 and 

 1903-1912 respectively, they are well acquainted with the flora, 

 and this is also shown in their book. As is customary nowadays, 

 the book gives a key to families, genera and species, and these 

 keys, as far as can be judged from the limited inspection that 

 could be made, seem to be excellent. The descriptions are in 

 many cases rather short, in fact they average shorter than has 

 been customary in later years, but this fact is by no means any 

 detriment to their use, for the book is intended for the student 

 and the amateur. Long descriptions are always confusing to the 

 student and often exasperating even to the scientist, because in 

 wading through the verbosity of a description of from a quarter 

 of a page to a page and a half, one loses the essential characters 

 of the plant. A short concise description drawn to the point is 

 much better, and this is just one of the good features of the book. 

 In looking over the treatment of genera and species, one may 

 wonder whether the authors belong to the school of "splitters" 

 or of the "lumpers." We find that such genera as Jimiperus, 

 Pinus, Brodiaea (the authors use Hookera instead), Zygadeniis, 

 Polygonum, Saxifraga, Tellina, Mitella, Riihus, Hosackia, Astra- 

 galus, Oxalis, Cornus, Pyrola, Rhododendron, Lonicera, Aplo- 

 pappus (the older name Hoorbeckia is used), are kept intact and 

 in the same sense as used by the Gray -Watson school, while 

 Limnorchis, Piperia and Lysias are regarded as distinct from 

 Habenaria; Sieversia from Geum; Dasiphora, Argentina and Dry- 

 mocallis from Potentilla; Sphaero stigma from Oenothera; Gor- 

 mannia from Sedum; Hypopitys from Monotropa; Harrimanella 

 from Cassiope; Navarretia and Collomia from Cilia; Cryptanthe 

 and Allocarya from Eritrichium; Orostemma and Eucephalus from 

 Aster; and Euthamia from Solidago. The authors evidently have 

 tried to take the middle road, which is very commendable. 

 However, in a few cases they have not succeeded in doing so. 

 For instance the western Anticlea and Toxicoscordion, though 

 closely related to each other, are not at all so ta the eastern 

 Zygadenus; and Tellina and Lithophragma really belong to two 

 different sections of Saxifragaceae, while on the other hand 



