SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 5 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED. 
Californian Polemoniaceae. By Jessie Milliken. Univ. Cal. Publ. 
Botany 2, 1-71. t. 1-11. May, 1904. 
Miss Milliken has taken in hand a family of plants abundantly 
represented in the flora of the state, so that it has a particular interest 
to Californian botanists, and they especially will appreciate the con- 
venience of having, under one cover, descriptions of the older species 
and of these more recently proposed. Six genera are recognized, name- 
ly: Polemonium, with 6 species; Navarrettia, with 32; Gilia, with 36; 
Linanthus, with 31; and Phlox, with 9 species. In generic distinctions 
the stress is laid on characters drawn from the calyx. Few new species 
are proposed, these from the southern counties being Gilia traskie, from 
Santa Catalina Island; G. davyi, common in the Mojave Desert, and 
Linanthus pacificus, from Palomar. Field students will note with satis- 
faction the reduction of Gilia floccosa and G. filifolia to varieties of G. 
virgata, and the suppression of Linanthus pharmaceoides. The reduc- 
tion of L. brevicula to a variety of L. androsacea appears to be less 
happy. Three species of Southern California—Gilia bella, G. leptantha, 
and G. tenuifolia—have escaped the author’s notice. Gilia jonesii is 
eredited to Lower California, ‘‘and probably within our borders’’. The 
type was collected at Needles. Gilia setorissima is cited only from 
Arizona, ‘‘and will therefore probably be found in the desert region of 
Southern California’’. The plant is by no means rare in the Mojave 
desert, where it has been collected by several botanists. The common 
form is that having punctate corollas, which is figured and described in 
‘the Death Valley Report, as variety punctata. Oversights such as these 
are to be regretted in a paper otherwise commendable. 
Sway JEM 
Circular No. 20, Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Dept. Agric., is an ex- 
tract from proceedings of the Association of Official Agricultural Chem- 
ists. It is gratifying to learn that chemists have finally awakened to 
the erying need of uniformity in reporting analytical results. A vast 
amount of immensely valuable and painstaking work has been all but 
wasted because of the great labor necessary to put the results into shape 
for ready comparison. A committee of five has been appointed ‘‘to 
consider the whole question of unifying the terms in which analytical 
results are reported.’’ The Committee on Recommendations of Referees 
have carefully gone over in detail the methods of analysis and other 
suggestions made to them, embodying their conclusions in a paper which 
has been published in the form of this circular. 
The Chemical Composition of Apples and Cider has undoubtedly 
more to do with a wide range of questions physical, chemical, biological, 
social, political, industrial and even moral and intellectual, than will 
appear at first glanee. These matters are not considered in the Bulletin 
before us, but they are suggested by the variations in composition of 
many samples of cider analyzed and \by varying results of fermentation 
in different varieties of apples under a considerable range of treatment 
in fermentation. In commercial samples of cider tested ‘‘the fluctuations 
in sugar content from nothing to 13.56 per cent, and in alcohol content 
from nothing to 6.87 per cent’’, indicate very loose and ignorant notions 
among producers of what actually constitutes a true cider. The re- 
searches now under way in the Department of Agriculture at Washington 
are but a beginning of those contemplated, which are to include physical 
and cultural and other investigations. Eventually it is hoped that 
adequate knowledge upon .these subjects may enable fruit growers to 
