56 



when they should have been determined as those of U. andro- 

 pogonis. 



West Virginia University, 



MORGANTOWN, WeST VIRGINIA 



REVIEWS 



Willis's Flowering Plants and Ferns* 



The publication of a third edition calls attention to this hand- 

 book in the Cambridge Biological Series as a book which is 

 probably not so widely known in this country as its usefulness 

 might warrant. The preface states that the book is aimed to 

 supply such information about the plants met with in a botanical 

 garden or museum, or in field work, as is required by any but 

 specialists. The introduction contains helpful notes on field 

 work and collecting. Following this, about one hundred pages 

 are occupied with a brief and somewhat categorical account of 

 general morphology and physiology, the paragraphs on nutri- 

 tion, in particular, being rather inadequate. The constant em- 

 phasis on the phylogenetic point of view gives the discussion of 

 morphology a suggestive value for teachers. This standpoint is 

 further emphasized in the chapter on evolution and classification. 

 In a two-page note at the end of the first part, the author 

 announces his conversion to the theory of mutation, giving a 

 brief but effective apology for this change during the publication 

 of the work. The other chapters of this part are devoted to 

 useful summaries of plant geography and economic botany. 



The second and larger part of the book (covering over 400 

 pages) is a dictionary of " the classes, cohorts, orders, and chief 

 genera of the flowering plants and ferns." It is unfortunate that 

 this "provincial" group -terminology is retained, in view of the 

 general use in America and in the best Continental works of the 

 terms order and family, as prescribed in the Vienna Code, 

 though even the makers of that Code had not arrived at a full 

 appreciation of the desirability of uniformity in ordinal termina- 

 tions. 



* Willis, J. C. A Manual and Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and Ferns. 

 12 mo. Pp. xii 4- 714. 1908. [3d ed.] Cambridge, University Press. 



