690 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXV. 
In Engler and Prantl’s aturfamilien Pflanzen the genus is noted 
as having about twenty species, many of them little understood. 
In examining the forms from Japan, collected by the Vega expedi- 
tion and subsequently by Petersen, Dr. Kjellman found many that 
could not be placed under known species, and was led to make a 
thorough study of the genus. The result of this study may be seen 
in the fact that, of the sixty-two species here recorded, only sixteen 
are of previous authors; the remaining forty-six are new. 
Habit characters, on which the previous classification was almost 
entirely based, are here considered as of little value, and structural 
characters are used instead, the descriptions being supplemented 
by nineteen quarto plates of anatomical drawings by the author, 
while a double plate gives habit figures, photographically produced 
from herbarium specimens. The rich collections of. Areschoug, 
Agardh, and the author himself, with those in the Swedish museums, 
formed the material on which the work is based, and the fact that it 
was all dried material in herbaria constitutes the one possibly weak 
spotin the results. The ideal method of study would be to see all 
the species in their homes, to notice the range of variation of a spe- 
cies in different local conditions and at different seasons, and then, 
with the results of this study clearly in mind, to refer to the original 
types. But when this study of living material must be made over 
half the surface of the globe, or at least the seacoast within that 
area, it is evident that this ideal is hardly likely to be attained. 
In the tables showing the distribution of the species, only three 
are assigned to the coast of the United States, G. flagelliforme, G. stel- 
lifera, G. umbellata. This number will have to be increased, as 
on the shores of Florida there occur G. obtusata, G. rugosa, G. lapi- 
descens, and G. marginata. The last two species, in the older sense, 
are divided by Kjellman into several species each, so that the figure 
for our coast must be seven, and may be one or two more. 
The descriptions of the new species and the explanations of the 
plates are in Latin ; the rest of the work, including all the historical 
notes and the anatomical studies, are in Swedish, which is unfortu- 
nate in a work of such general scope and interest. 
(Svedelius, Nils. “Studier öfver Östersjöns Hafsalgflora,” Akade- 
misk Afhandling: Upsala, 1go1.) The author has made a careful 
study of the red, brown, and green algæ of the eastern and northern 
part of the Baltic Sea. The flora is quite a limited one, only fifty- 
six species being enumerated, there being a steady falling off in the 
