No. 415.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 601 
doubt, when the terminology and classification shall have become 
settled into a more consistent form, a more lucid, logical, and work- 
able method will result. Future authors of similar treatises are 
hardly likely to adopt our authors’ treatment of biological and eco- 
logical relations, grouping all but the larger families under cohorts. 
Would it not be better to incorporate much of this information in 
the description of formations, and the remainder under ordinal and 
specific caption in the descriptive lists of Nebraskan plants issued 
in other volumes, and to which this work is in a manner the 
introduction ? ` 
Whatever of deficiency the work possesses, however, is entirely of 
form. The work itself is of such high merit ‘that it will bear any 
amount of criticism, and the indication of. its defects will but bring 
into prominence its great excellence. The energy and enthusiasm 
of its authors are everywhere evident; but, having to find their own 
path, since the European masters of this new department of science 
could but indicate the direction, they have had, with often inept term, 
to translate or invent new phrases to fit the new conditions here 
presented. Again they have been at some disadvantage in their 
field of operations, since but few states of the Union offer less topo- 
graphic diversity than Nebraska. With scarcely any rock exposure 
whatever, it was not a propitious field in which to study the chemical 
composition of soils and the consequent result on vegetation, par- 
ticularly in its opposite phases as illustrated in semi-mountainous 
regions where on calcareous and siliceous substrata interesting and 
hitherto little analyzed or described conditions prevail. The groups 
of plants below the Pteridophyta seem to play but a very insignificant 
part in Nebraska, and students elsewhere will find in these lower 
groups much more that is noteworthy, and the increased attention 
constantly being paid to the lower cryptogams will cause a fuller 
treatment to be thoroughly appreciated. 
The work, however, as it stands cannot be too highly commended 
and recommended to botanical students and workers, to many of 
whom indeed it is indispensable. ` Teachers and others may fitly use 
it as supplementary to a study of plant physiology, of which it is a 
concrete example. Apart from its high value as displaying the floral 
covering of a large territory, purely as a work on phytogeography 
and ecology it is at present by far the best American work we have. 
It is an example of what may be done under efficient leadership and 
with proper enthusiasm. Great credit is due to the authors and 
their colleagues. It has required a vast amount of labor to collate 
