No. 467.] NOTES AND LITERATURE.. 851 
advanced in the series is in reality the initial number of a new work 
which is intended to describe the wild plants of all groups not only 
of the United States but of the remainder of North America, includ- 
ing the West Indies. The editorial management has been under- 
taken by Doctors Britton and Underwood, who have associated with 
themselves an advisory committee of representative American botan- 
ists, and who depend upon the collaboration of a large number of 
specialists. Thirty volumes of four or five fascicles each are in con- 
templation, and a special fund set aside for this purpose by the New 
York Botanical Garden provides for the publication of the several 
parts as they are prepared. 
The present fascicle, which is attractively printed and provided 
with analytical keys for all of the groups treated, is devoted to the 
first four (Podostemonacez, Crassulacez, Penthoracez, and Parnas- 
siaceze) of the twenty-four families recognized as representing the 
order Rosales; the first being handled by Nash, the second by Brit- 
ton and Rose, and the third and fourth by Rydberg, the ordinal key 
and description being by Small. 
So large an undertaking is subject to many dangers and is certain 
to suffer many mishaps; and, considering the imperfect herbarium 
data and the impossibility of extensive field research if the work is 
to be pushed forward with any speed, it may be said that each fasci- 
cle is likely to become antiquated in a very short time after its pub- 
lication, so far, at least, as the tropical regions are concerned, — the 
more rapidly, indeed, in proportion to its own critical excellence. 
There appears to be no other way, however, of making possible the 
ultimately complete flora of this enormous and botanically rich terri- 
tory that every botanist feels the need of, and the editors should 
count on the active support of all who can help them forward with 
their plans. Ww. T 
Ames's Studies in the Family Orchidacez.!— A new irregular- 
interval publication, somewhat comparable with Hooker's Jcones 
Plantarum, the Jcones Selecte Horti Thenensis, etc., has been 
launched under the auspices of a publisher's house which does vd 
good and attractive work. Its purpose is to present the results z 
investigation on one of the largest and best known collections o 
ations and Studies of the Family Orchida- 
Ausetts 
1 3 Aidacee. Jllustr: 
Ames, Oakes. Orchidace otanical Laboratory, North Easton, Massachusetts. 
8vo, fasc. 1, vi 4-156 
cee, issuing from the Ames B ds: 
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1905. 
pp., 16 pls. 
