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rangement of families, which is to be commended, but the nomen- 

 clature is of the most radical type, and lacking as it does all 

 synonomy is likely to be the source of many troubles to the be- 

 ginner trying to match knowledge gained from other books with 

 this one. There is a fairly workable "key to the families," and the 

 popular matter relating to each species is prefaced by an accurate 

 technical description. The language of the untechnical parts is 

 scarcely to be approved. Apparently the author has gone out of 

 her way to bring in uncouth and involved methods of expression. 

 Nevertheless, this part of the book contains a vast amount of in- 

 teresting matter. The illustrations are good, and taken all in all 

 the book is likely to be found very useful to the Southern 

 botanizer. 



From the author of the three-volume "Illustrated Flora" we 

 now have the "Manual of the Flora of the North Eastern States 

 and Canada,"? which by omitting the illustrations and by the use 

 of smaller type, condenses the three volumes into one for school 

 and field use. The publishers have acquitted themselves very 

 creditably, but the author has made a book that seems likely 

 never to take the place with the majority of botanists now occu- 

 pied by Gray's and Wood's "Manuals." In the interpretation of 

 genera, species and sub-species the author goes to even greater 

 lengths than he did in the "Illustrated Flora." Many genera in 

 this new volume contain twice as many species as are given in 

 "Gray's Manual" for the same range. A large number of these 

 additional species are "segregates," that is, split off from other 

 well-known species. Doubtless time will show some of these to 

 be good species, but it is just as certain that when the botanical 

 pendulum swings back again many of them will be finally placed 

 an varieties or sub-species. The nomenclature follows the much 

 vaunted "Rochester Rules," and of course differs in many places 

 from the "stable" nomenclature of the "Illustrated Flora." It may 

 be asserted without question that botanists do not care what no- 

 menclature is used so long as a name once given remains un- 

 changed. That the "Rochester Rules" will not accomplish this is 

 shown in the work of this author, himself the chief exponent of 

 these rules. It is but recently, probably since much of this work 



tManual of the Flora of the North Eastern States and Canada, by N. 

 L. Britton, N. Y. : Henry Holt & Co., 1901. pp. 1,080. 



