28 NORSK FLORA AP 0- A. HOFFSTAD. 



old friend's chapter on the snakes of Iceland. A writer on this 

 subject is of necessity driven (one would think) to search the record 

 of the rocks, and to recognise the beggarly array of empty strata so 

 far as cryptogams, other than vascular, are concerned. Mr. Massee 

 states this candidly and correctly in paragraphs at the conclusion 

 of chapters and elsewhere on fossil forms — they are a scattered 

 remnant, and yield no conclusive data. But there is another way : 

 to survey the present forms with critical eye, and to project oneself 

 into the past and to plant anew the barren strata with vegetation 

 which must have lived in the piping times when Nature had its own 

 way. This may or may not be profitable, and Mr. Massee may or 

 may not be right in his views — who shall say? These are indeed 

 perilous times for peaceful botanists, when a young lady discusses in 

 another place "the ancestors of the Fucacece" as if we knew, or even 

 she knew, many precious things about the present ones. The dis- 

 appointing thing about the game is that it is played without any 

 rules, like the game of riddles invented by the Hatter and the 

 March Hare which so exasperated Alice. However, Mr. Massee 

 generally keeps to the present forms, and describes typical examples 

 of them very well, and after all that is the main thing. No doubt 

 they had ancestors, like the rest of us. As an introduction, there 

 is a preliminary account of plant life ; and the whole book, which is 

 wonderfully cheap, forms an elementary treatise on the subject 

 which will be of benefit to the numerous students attending 

 Extension lectures who have no access to more expensive works. 



G. M. 



Norsk Flora of 0. A. Hoffstad. F. Beyer. Bergen and Kristiana. 



1891. 8vo, pp. xxxii, 222. 



To treat of the Flora of Norway in 254 pages seems somewhat 

 startling, but this has been done in the volume before us, which 

 is moreover printed in clear and distinct type, and embraces the 

 greater part of the Norwegian Flora. 



• The book is arranged by Warming's Handbook, but the author 

 gives a table of the Linnean system at the beginning and one of a 

 natural system at the end of the book. By leaving out most of the 

 critical species, hybrids, author's names, &c, he compresses the 

 descriptions into a small space, giving, however, where there are 

 more than three species in a genus, an arrangement even more 

 easy to work by than that given by Bentham in his Handbook, 

 which it somewhat resembles. In some cases, however, it would 

 lead astray, as in Potamoyeton nutans and P. polyyonifolius, where 

 the difference of M long " and " short " has no specific value. 



After the Flora proper (consisting of 191 pages) comes the ex- 

 planation of the terms used in the book, with 31 woodcuts of leaf- 

 forms, the meanings of the Latin names of the species, a list of 

 sub-species, hybrids, &c, with the species under which the authors 

 would place them, and index of Latin and Norwegian names. It 

 may be doubted whether some of the latter are names actually in 

 use among the natives; many do not agree with those given in 



