﻿CURRENT LITERATURE 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Books on trees, most of them of a popular or semi-scientific character, have 

 been produced abundantly within recent years, and many, limiting their scope 

 to some particular region of our country, have successfully met an increasing 

 demand, and have contributed materially to furthering the interests of botani- 

 cal science. In a recent publication Mathews' has attempted to include 

 within the limits of a single volume, not only all the trees of the continent that 

 would be likely to interest the informal student of nature, but also the shrubs 

 as well. This is a difficult, if not an impossible task, and it is not surprising 

 that the result, while in many respects excellent, is open to some unfavorable 



the number of species to be included. That this number is large is shown by 

 the inclusion of 2 5 species of pine, 2 of them European ; the same number of 

 oaks; 31 willows; 11 shad bushes; 13 maples; and, still more surprising, 

 24 species of V actinium, 15 of Viburnum, and 69 of Crataegus; while many 

 other genera have been treated with equal generosity. For example, it is hard 

 to see why the white birch should be separated into 7 species and varieties for 

 other than a strictly technical botanical audience. The same criticism would 

 apply with even greater force to Salix, Amelanchier, and Crataegus, especially 

 as the descriptions, although on the whole excellent, are not sufficiently exact 

 and critical to enable even a well-trained botanist to identify a doubtful speci- 

 men within these genera. The difficulties are here accentuated by the entire 

 absence of all adequate keys. This is perhaps the most serious fault of the 

 book, and were it not for the extensive series of excellent drawings of leaves 

 and fruit, identification by its aid would be a hopeless task. These drawings, 

 on the contrary, are among the best that have yet appeared, and covering 128 

 full-page figures and about five times that number of species they seem quite 

 worth the price of the volume. The 66 plates of habit studies of individual 

 trees, 16 of them in color, do not appeal to the reviewer as at all equal to the 

 figures, and could be omitted without serious detriment to other than the pos- 

 sibly artistic value of the book. Other commendable features are the good 

 descriptions of most of the species, the extensive and accurate data as to their 

 distribution, supplemented by some 80 small maps, on each of which the areas 



1 Mathews, F. S., Fiel 



