regions i 



the most interesting botanical 

 our country lies near San Fran- 

 cisco. It has been carefully explored 

 bj a good many botanists, both protcssi 

 and amateur, and its treasures are mor 

 less accessible in numerous treatises, 

 of the most c 

 W. L. Jepson'i 



California" (San Francisco: Cunningham, 

 Curtiss & Welch), a second revised edition 

 ol which has just appeared. The "key" to , - - _ 



th" natural families has been constructed j ff A 



in such a manner as to lead even 

 ner by easy steps, and the descript 

 bcth generic and specifle, are sufficiently 



ent of these is Prof. "^—^ '-^J 



"Flora of Western Middle ^^^ ^ . 



ample. There are no illustrations, but the 

 lack is not altogether serious. One could 

 wish that, for the botanists coming from 

 the Bast, rather more information had been 

 given about trivial and yet interesting pe- 

 culiarities, such as fragrance, exceptional 

 methods of dissemination, and the like. The 

 ■author has wisely adopted the sequence 

 which places at the beginning of the book 

 the families simplest in structure and low- 

 est in the scale, passing thence to the more 

 highly differentiated. He has not attempted 

 to indicate by accents the pronunciation of 

 the technical names of the plants, always 

 a difficult and ungracious task, and one 

 which is, on the whole, of little worth; nor, 

 quite properly, Jias he contrived common 

 I names for the native species, although he has 

 retained the good ones, like "cream-cups," 

 "sand-verbena," "tar-weed," etc. Informa- 

 tion concerning local words is given com- 

 pactly and well. Thus, "Chaparral con- 

 sists of Manzanita, Pickeringia, Buck- 

 brush, Scruboak, or similar shrubs which 

 form impenetrable and extensive thickets 

 clothing densely the higher slopes and 

 ridges of the Coast Ranges, and the foothills 

 and middle altitudes of the Sierra Nevada." 

 The handy volume of over 500 pages of 

 small octavo contains a geographical index, 

 d index of 



