No. 388.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 347 
good excuse is assuredly necessary to justify the publication of one. 
But this little volume, which, as is stated, is to be the first of a series, 
is not a mere copy or abridgment of preéxisting works of this sort. 
While from its extreme brevity of form it must, like many other 
elementary laboratory guides, present only a few rather isolated 
botanical facts, these facts are better correlated than in many similar 
books. It is, indeed, somewhat of a relief to find that no attempt is 
made to review the whole field of botany from A to Z. Possibly the 
author reserves this task for the more advanced “ Practica,” which are 
to follow. The table in which is set forth the most important char- 
acters of the tissue elements of angiosperms must prove convenient, 
at least in memorizing, if in nothing more. AMR 
Schumann’s Monograph of the Cactacez.'—In 1897 Professor 
Schumann, of the Botanical Museum at Berlin, issued the first 
Lieferung of a work which was intended to be completed in ten 
parts, and to contain descriptions, with synonymic references, for all 
of the sufficiently known species of cacti, as well as a chapter on the 
‘means of cultivating these interesting and sometimes beautiful plants. 
On the fifteenth of December, 1898, the publication of this work was 
completed by the printing of the thirteenth part, it having proved 
impossible to condense the entire matter into the limits originally 
proposed. 
Probably there is no more complete nor representative collection 
of living cacti than that which Professor Engler, the Director of the 
Berlin Garden, has brought together within the last ten years, and 
there certainly is no botanist who has of late given so much con- 
tinuous and careful study to the cacti as has Dr. Schumann. The 
work which he has just finished publishing is therefore one destined 
to take foremost rank in the hands of all students of the group, 
whether botanists or gardeners. The descriptions and keys are con- 
cise and, in the main, good. The synonymy adopted, which, as 
might be supposed, has been conformed to the Berlin rules, is con- 
servative, and therefore reasonably satisfactory. The limitation of 
species has been effected on very conservative grounds, and while 
there is little doubt that some of them, as here accepted, will soon be 
redivided by Dr. Schumann or others, it is far better to have erred in 
this direction than by the multiplication of names for forms which 
1 Schumann, K. Gesammtbeschreibung der Kakteen (Monographia Cacta- 
cearum). Mit einer kurzen Anweisung zur Pflege der Kakteen, von Karl Hirscht. 
Neudamm, 1899. 8vo, xi + 832 pp., 117 ff. 
