SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, wg 



what plants, in the conception of the anthors, they are to include. We 

 note (page 18) a slight geographical slip, in taking the Coronado Islands 

 as belonging to California instead of Mexico. 



We trust that we may expect, from the ability of the authors, and 

 the resources at their command, a full and systematic monograph of 

 the difficult and neglected family which they have taken in hand. 



In Dr. Greene 's paper Meconella is restored for certain species of 

 Platystigma, only one of which, P. denticulata, Greene, is southern. For 

 others a new name is proposed, Hesperomecon, of which genus a single 

 specimen species, H. lineare, Greene, has been collected in Southern 

 California. In Platystemon the single representative heretofore recog- 

 nized, P. Californicum, Benth., is restricted to a local maritime plant of 

 Monterey. From tlie other ])lants which have been referred to that 

 species, 51 new species, and one variety, are segregated. In one instance, 

 from "a bunch mounted as single specimen," and x>robably gathered 

 in a single handful, the author was able to disentangle the types of 

 three new species. Fifteen Platystemons are credited to Southern Cali- 

 fornia. 



The usefulness of Dr. Greene's paper is enhanced b}' the provision 

 of keys, so that one is not left to grope his way through the maze of 

 new species without the aid of a clew. 



Dr. Greene still recognizes the variety, a category more logically 

 dropped by the author of the Crassulaceaej and by most segregators. It 

 is remarkable that whereas the conception of a species as an abstract 

 idea, and not a concrete entity, is universally accepted, in practice 

 it is more and more defined by the minute description of a jjarticular 

 specimen, to which it is carefully tied. Slight differences, once dis- 

 regarded as unimportant, Or relegated to forms or varieties, now become 

 the bases of species. Systematists may yet be in danger of losing the 

 faculty of generalizing through a too exclusive attention to the study 

 of the individual. S. B. P. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



"The Milk Supply of Two Hundred Cities and Towns." U. S. De- 

 partment Agriculture. Bureau of Animal Industry. Bulletin No. 46. 



"Wild Eice, Its Uses and propagation." IT. S. Department Agricul- 

 ture, Bureau of Plant Industry. Bulletin No. 50. 



' ' The Use of Branding Fluid. ' ' University of Arizona, Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station. Bulletin No. 47. 



