118 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



BOOKS AND WRITERS 



The Ohio State University has recently -pubhshed a cata- 

 log of "Ohio' Vascular Plants" by Prof. John H. Schaffner 

 which shows that there are more than two thousand different 

 species in the State. Of this number, about one-fourth are re- 

 garded as exotics. The catalog is a numbered list of plants 

 with their Latin and Brittonesque names and the distribution 

 and abundance of each species given. The nomenclature is 

 that of the second edition of the 'Tllustrated Flora" and there- 

 fore follows the "American Code." In this list the classes, 

 sub-classes, orders, families and sub-families are included in 

 their proper places, making it easier for the user of the list to 

 keep the run of plant relationships. This is one of the first lists 

 to place the water lilies among the Monocotyledons. They now 

 appear between the pond weeds and the eel-grass families. Pre- 

 vious to this catalog, four lists had been issued by Kellerman. 

 The new list is therefore likely to be pretty complete and is sure 

 to be of much value to botanical students. 



Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., have begun the publica- 

 tion of a "Thresholds of Science" series designed for those 

 wholly unfamiliar with this department of knowledge. The 

 first volume in the series is entitled "Botany" by E. Brucker 

 and is apparently a translation of a work originally issued in 

 France. It would probably be a difficult task for anyone to 

 condense a guide to all phases of botany into one book of less 

 than two hundred pages, and the author has contented himself 

 with an account of plant structure and physiology followed by 

 an outline of the classification of flowering plants as laid down 

 by Bentham and Hooker. Since most people who take up 

 botany as a pastime are chiefly interested in the names and re- 

 lationships of plants, this choice of subject matter is probably 

 a wise one. It avoids, however, all mention of plant breeding 

 and ecology, two subjects much in the foreground at present. 



