80 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXIV. 
Alnus serrulata fossilis, and Magnolia elliptica. A few new names 
or new combinations occur due to the necessities of nomenclature 
or corrections in generic reference. Many of Professor Newberry’s 
species are figured for the first time. An important feature is the 
figures of several specimens which are the originals of tracings sent 
to Professor Heer, and from which that author published new species. 
These are Populus litigiosa, Leguminosites marcouanus, Sapotacites hay- 
denii, and Phyllites obcordatus. In a table is given a list of localities 
from which specimens came as mentioned in the text. 
It is most desirable in publication to state in what museums speci- 
mens described are located, and the absence of such information in 
this volume is an unfortunate omission. The undesirable tendency 
to consider species as distinct, simply because they occur in different 
geological horizons, is shown in several places, as under Salix meekii 
Newberry, of the Dakota Group, Cretaceous, where the author says 
that this species has a resemblance to several Tertiary species, “.. . 
from which it might be unwise to regard it as distinct if they were 
from the same formation.” Similarly it is undesirable to give a 
separate name to fossils when their characters are so close to living 
forms that they are systematically indistinguishable. Cases in which 
this is done are Onoclea sensibilis fossilis, Corylus rostrata Sossilis, 
Alnus serrulata fossilis. The description of fossil forms “ indistin- 
guishable " from living forms, as stated in several cases, raises an 
objection to the title of the volume, Zhe Later Extinct Floras of 
orth America. Species of fossil plants, as of fossil animals, should 
be based on the characters they present, independently of how long 
they may have lived, as represented by the lapse of geological time. 
ETL 
Coal Measure Plants.' — In the course of publications by William- 
son, Scott, Seward, and others, frequent reference has been made to 
the Binney collection of fossil plants which was presented to the 
Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, England, in 1892. Although 
some of the species have been repeatedly investigated during the 
last few decades, the collection embraces other species which illus- 
trate important morphological points hitherto overlooked, and thus 
afford valuable evidence of a phylogenetic character. Mr. Seward 
has undertaken.to indicate the nature of the data he has gathered 
from the collection, and thereby places in the hands of working paleo- 
1 Seward, A. C. Notes on the Binney Collection of Coal Measure Plants, 
Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., vol. x, iii, pp. 137. 
