CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
A textbook of grasses 
We are familiar with books treating grasses from the standpoint of tax- 
onomy or of agriculture, but to make this group the basis of a textbook rather 
than a book of reference is something unusual. Such a book has been written 
by Hircucock,? and appears as one of ‘“‘The rural textbook series,” under the 
editorship of L. H. Bartry. The two parts are ‘“‘Economic agrostology”’ and 
“Systematic agrostology,”’ so that the economic and taxonomic aspects of the 
group are prominent; nevertheless, the treatment is dominated by the text- 
book idea, and it is distinctly a teaching book. The titles under ‘‘ Economic 
agrostology”’ are economic classification of grasses, forage plants, cultivated 
morphology of the vegetative organs, morphology of the floral organs, ecology, 
and principles of classification. This introduction is followed by a taxonomic 
presentation of the group, which includes a key to all the genera found growing 
wild or in common cultivation in the United States. The more important 
genera are described more fully, as they should be, and the principle of selection 
has been to familiarize the users of the book with the grasses that deserve most 
piety 
ook will certainly prove very useful to a large and growing con- 
tec which should include not only rural communities and ee 
colleges, but also students of botany in colleges and universities.—J. M. 
MINOR NOTICES 
Flora of Jamaica.—The third volume of FawcetrT and RENDLE’S Flora 
of Jamaica? begins the Dicotyledons. The first volume, published in 1910, 
included the orchids; while the second volume, not yet published, will include 
* Hircucock, A. S., A textbook of grasses with especial reference to the economic 
species of > United ‘States. 8vo. xvii-+276. figs. 63. New York: Macmillan. 
1914. $1.5 
2 ee cetr, W., and REenpig, A. B., Flora of Jamaica, containing descriptions of 
the flowering plbits known from the island Vol. III. Dicotyledons (Piperaceae 
to Connaraceae). 8vo. xxiv+280. figs. 113. pls. 5. Published by the Bn itish 
Museum. 1914. 
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