No. 385.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 83 
A comparative histological study of Veratrum viride and V. album 
is published by R. H. Denniston in No. 3 of the current volume of 
Pharmaceutical Archives. 
“ Economic Grasses ” is the title of Buletin No. rg of the Division 
of Agrostology of the United States Department of Agriculture. The 
paper is virtually an abbreviated edition of Buletin No. 3 of the same 
Division, and, like that, is well illustrated, a number of good half-tone 
plates being introduced into the present edition. Professor Scribner 
appears as its author. 
Nos. 9 and 1o of the first Abtheilung of the Botanische Zeitung for 
1898 contain a study of the male prothallus of Hydropterides, by 
Belajeff. 
In the Jahrbücher für Wissenschaftliche Botanik, Vol. xxxii, Heft 
3, Heinricher publishes a second paper on “Die grünen Halb- 
schmarotzer,” dealing with the genera Euphrasia, Alectorolophus, 
and Odontites. 
Rimbach contributes an extensive illustrated article on the growth 
of rhizomes to a characteristic depth in the soil, to Fiinfstiicks Bei- 
träge sur Wissenschaftlichen Botanik, Vol. iii, Abteilung 1, in contin- 
uation of an article in the preceding volume of the same publication 
on contractile roots and their action. 
The possible fiber industries of the United States is the subject of 
an illustrated article, by C. R. Dodge, in Popular Science Monthly for 
November. 
The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society for October devotes 
something over forty pages to papers by Mr. Burbidge on perfumes, 
and the plants which afford them, an important part of the collection 
being a list of books on perfumes. 
Twelve of Idaho’s worst weeds are described and figured by Pro- 
fessor Henderson in Bulletin No. rg of the Agricultural Experiment 
Station of the University of Idaho. The article is prefaced by an 
account of the source and mode of dispersal of weeds. 
Instructive little handbooks by Dr. Niederlein on the Republic of 
Guatemala, the State of Nicaragua, and the Republic of Costa Rica 
have recently been issued by the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. 
Their scope, while ultimately economic, includes topography, geology, 
soil, flora, and fauna, so they should be of value to scientific trav- 
