CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
Vegetation der Erde 
XIII, NORTH AMERICA 
It is unfortunate that ENGLER and Drupe should have decided to devote 
but one volume of the Vegetation der Erde to North America. Such a decision 
seems out of harmony with the rest of the work. It might have been expected 
that a work published in Europe would devote separate volumes to such rela- 
tively limited areas as the Carpathians, the Caucasus, the Balkan countries, 
and the North German heath. However, a somewhat comparable plan has 
been followed with regard to Africa, three volumes having already been issued, 
with more promised. Even in South America, a volume has been devoted to 
Chile and another to the Peruvian Andes. With such a plan, it is a funda- 
mental mistake to devote but one volume to North America.t HARSHBERGER 
prepared himself as well as he could for the impossible task he was asked to 
undertake by years of study and by trips to all the more important phytogeo- 
there may be found the chief results of the phytogeographic work accomplished 
upon our continent. There are many errors of detail throughout the volume, 
errors both of omission and of commission, and some are rather serious. To 
many, and especially to taxonomic specialists of local areas, these errors will 
loom large. To those of broader viewpoint, however, the numerous errors 
will be subordinate to the relatively successful completion of one of the most 
stupendous tasks ever undertaken by a single botanist. HARSHBERGER 
deserves and will receive the gratitude of all future plant geographers in our 
country, for he has vastly lightened their labors. They will value this work 
because of its helpfulness as a guide to literature, and because of its broad 
comparisons and generalizations; it will be for them an easy matter to correct 
the errors of determination or of synonymy and the mistakes in spelling that 
seem such grevious matters to some of the reviewers. This volume is the first 
of the series to appear in a tongue other than the German. It is a pleasure to 
congratulate ENGLER and Drupe for their broad-minded conception in this 
* Encter, A., and Drupe, O., Die Vegetation der Erde. XIII. HarsHBERGER, 
5; W., Phy tomeoseapble survey of ‘North America. pp. Ixiii+790. map. pls. 18. figs. 
32. Le eipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann (also G. E. Stechert & Co. New York). tort. 
M. 52 (subscription price M. 40). 
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