No. 374] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 129 
personal observations. Of this report the introductory pages give 
a concise statement of the geography, geology, and meteorological 
conditions of the archipelago, followed by a habital description of 
the vegetation, including not only the gradually disappearing in- 
digenous element and numerous introduced species, but even the 
varied plants of cultivation. 
The body of the report is occupied ay a complete enumeration 
of the plants, both phewnogamic and cryptogamic, known to grow 
naturally upon the islands. In this list, the following classes of 
plants are distinguished by different kinds of type: (1) endemic 
species, (2) Atlantic species of wider distribution, (3) established 
escapes, (4) doubtful or casual plants. Even the relative abundance 
of the different species is indicated by signs, so that their respective 
importance in making up the entire vegetation can be readily in- 
ferred. After the names of each species and variety are enumerated 
the islands on which it occurs, various authenticated exszccati, and 
several references to the most accessible descriptions and figures. 
The nomenclature of the Kew Index has been followed “as a matter 
of convenience.” — Would that some other American botanists 
could be content to follow this example and at the same time con- 
sult both their own convenience and that of their colleagues ! — 
Some half-dozen new species and varieties of phanogams are char- 
acterized, and these, as well as a number of other rare and hitherto 
unillustrated endemic species, are admirably figured in fifty-four 
plates, drawn by Miss Grace E. Johnson. 
Professor Trelease has sought in vain for evidence of that racial 
and varietal divergence in the florulz of the different islands which 
is so pronounced in the Galapagos Archipelago. This fact, how- 
ever, is not very surprising. Such a divergence could scarcely come 
about unless the florulæ were to a considerable extent isolated ; for, 
if this were not the case, there would be constant crossing and 
reblending of nearly related forms. In the matter of isolation of the 
different islands, the Azores and the Galapagos Archipelago are in 
no sense similar. As Wallace has pointed out, the meteorological 
conditions for seed distribution are much more favorable in the 
Atlantic than in the Pacific. But a still more important difference 
lies in the long habitation of the Azores and constant human inter- 
course between the different islands of the group. This cannot 
have failed to bring together plants which have tended toward 
racial divergence, and these when established upon the same island 
have most likely crossed freely and again formed a common stock. 
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