Botany and Zoology, 841 



plates, illustrating the Sedges, Grasses, Ferns, etc. New York 

 and Chicago, I8©0. (Ivison, Blakemao & Company.) 



It is now more than twenty-two years since the fifth edition of 

 Gray's Manual was published. At that timeonly the first volume 

 of Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum had appeared, and 



Dr. Gray was able to adopt BUOh of their conclusions as pleased 

 him only through the polype talons orders. The Genera was 

 finished in L888, and in 1886 Dr. Gray gave his final revision of 



the Gamopetalous orders of the North American flora. Th< 

 works and other great advances in Systematic Botany have for 



era! years rendered a new edition of the Manual very desirable, 

 and it is understood that Dr. Gray was hoping to undertake him- 

 self the task of preparing it. After his death the labor naturally 

 fell to the lot of Professor Watson, who has availed himself of the 

 assistance of Professor Coulter, the author of the Manual of the 

 Botany of the Bock;/ Mountain Region, and has also had, as the 

 title shows, the aid of specialists in certain groups. The editors 

 have extended the area covered by the work, so as to meet that 

 of Coulter's Manual, and have included an account of the He- 

 pattern, prepared by Professor Underwood. Aside from these 

 additions, the principal changes are, 1st, the interpolation of such 

 native plants as have been found since 1867 within the territory 

 covered by the Manual, together with the exotics which have 

 since that time gained a foothold, 2d, the entire re-arrangement 

 of the gamopetalous orders after Ericaceae in accordance with the 



tern given in the Genera Plantarum. and a similar re-arrange- 

 ment of the apetalous and monocotyledonous orders. The Ili- 



ea* are placed among the polypetaleae ; Diapensiacece replaces 

 Galacinece ; Plantaginacece stands at the end of gamopetaleae ; 



Tiirus is referred to Piperacece, and the birches and alders 

 constitute a suborder of Cupuliferse. The old division of the 

 monocotyledonous orders into Spadiceous, Pet aloid eons and Glu- 

 maceous plants is discarded, and the prime distinction is now 

 found in the inferior or superior position of the ovary. These, 

 and other similar changes, were fairly demanded by the advance 

 in the general principles of systematic botany. 



The Analytical Key to the Natural Orders of the fifth edition 

 was largely artificial in its character, and occasionally brought 

 near together orders having no very close real affinity. This is 

 replaced in the present edition by a Synopsis in which nearly all 

 the orders follow the same sequence that is observed in the body 

 of the work, the only exception being in the case of the 127th 

 order, Eriocaulew, which for the sake of convenience is placed in 

 the Synopsis at the end of the group headed by Liliare<t ; , instead of 

 being in its true place as the first of the glumaceous orders. A 

 noticeable improvement is the more general arrangement of the 

 genera of each order, and the species of each genus, in a descend- 

 ing series, from the most highly developed down to the lowest 

 forms. The application of this method is seen in Polygala, which 

 now begins with the most showy species, P. paucifolia, has the 



