1894.] Botany. 63 
BOTANY. 
Ellis and Everhart’s North American Fungi.—-Subscribers 
to this set have recently received Century XXX of this great distribu- 
tion of specimens, bringing the number up to 3000. Messrs. Ellis and 
Everhart are to be congratulated upon having carried their work to this 
point without a break or serious delay; an achievement never before 
excelled. May we not hope that they will push forward now toward 
the fortieth century ? 
The present volume is a miscellaneous one, including representatives 
of genera in widely separated families. Thus, there are of Æeidium 
: species, Capnodium 3, Cercospora 11, Cladosporium 2, Cylindrospor- 
um 3, Gymnosporangium 2, Morchella 1, Dirchoapere 1, Peziza 4, 
Phyllosticta 4, Puccinia 7, Septoria 6, Uromyces 2, besides many others 
of equally wide relationship. 
Of the quality of the specimens nothing need be said. The 
preceding Centuries have shown that in this regard nothing is 
wanting. Botanists who are so unfortunate as not to have secured a 
set of the North American Fungi, will be glad to know that the 
authors have begun a new set under the name of “ Fungi Columbiani,” 
of which they now offer Centuries I and II at six dollars each.— 
CHARLES E. Bessey. 
A Synopsis of the larger Groups of the Vegetable King- 
dom.—tThe following synopsis represents the results of a careful 
review of the larger groups of the vegetable kingdom. The Classes 
are, with few exceptions, those usually recognized by modern authors, 
but in the first and second their limits have been slightly extended so 
as to include a comparatively small number of degraded chlorophyll- 
less forms, the Bacteria and the Phycomycetous fungi. 
In like manner, in a few cases, slight changes have been made in 
the limits of the groups below classes (here tentatively called 
orders), otherwise they remain essentially as usually outlined. In 
the attempt to co-ordinate groups it becomes obvious that the 
“Orders” of the lower plants are equivalent to the “series” of the 
Angiosperms, according to the nomenclature of Bentham and Hook- 
ers Genera Plantarum. At first sight it may seem to be a violent 
innovation to transfer the term “Order” from Rosacee, for exam- 
ple, to the great aggregate of forms, the Calycijlore, yet a careful study 
1Edited by Prof. C. E. Bessey, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska. 
