BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 111 
dominant vacciniaceous and graminaceous undergrowths, will 
become on paper living realities. We shall not only have a record 
ct : i 
possess a record of every transition in the growth and develop- 
ment, with their underlying causes revealed and explained. Now 
for a word of criticism. 
Should this pamphlet be reprinted—as we hope it may be,— 
more should be made of altitude, geology, and rainfall. The 
larger moder ps are expli and it j 
“alt -18,”’ i.e., altitude above Ordnance datum 1,700 to 1,800 
feet. The slightest mixture of soils produces h s at 
NCé ; Pee surely, is botanical geology. The moisture question, 
even on heights lower than the Yorkshire hills, is : Reseed 
pretty pioblane in considering their eastern and western flora. 
How the writer of this pamphlet, for the sake of populerizing the 
cannot understand: ‘It goes without saying that a good field 
knowledge of our native plants is most desirable if the notes 
are to be thorough.” Surely ‘is absolutely necessary ’’ should be 
to become ‘‘a master,’”’ and to “make this method his own, should 
study, along with this and the other pamphlets of the forthcoming 
series, Messrs. R. & W. G. Smith’s pamphlet referred to above 
E. A. W.-P. 
BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, 
Tue most recent part of the North American a (issued Dee. 
18th, 1905) of which we gave some account last year (p. 311), con- 
sists mainly of the Saxifragacee, elaborated by Messrs. Small and 
is impossible not to wonder how far set a will commend 
itself and be ultimately accepted. There is, of course, always room 
for considerable difference of opinion as re which constitutes a species, 
an his the genus Heuchera gives abundant evidence. Seventy- 
© species are described, of which twenty-six are new; but o 
these a ras mber were strangled at birth by Dr. C. O. Rosendahl 
in what seems to be a very carefully elaborated paper on “ Die 
notdaniertiekh Higlael Saxifragine,” published in the Beiblatt zu den 
Botanischen Jahr: biichen, dated Dec. 22nd, 1905; he reduces seven- 
ymy 
four days afteboraedy:. It is not for us to say which estimate approxi- 
mates most nearly to trath; but it is impossible not to view with 
poncheg Haeanal dencies to extreme differentiation exhibited . 
