BOOKS AND WRITERS. 
Still another ''How to know" book has appeared. This 
is entitled "Mountain Wildflowers of America" and is written 
by Julia W. Henshaw. Our country is now so well covered 
with books for identifying the wildflowers that the book is 
rare indeed that finds a phase of the subject intouched. The 
present volume, however appears to be one of this class. It 
deals principally with the plants of the western mountains, but 
includes practically all that are found in elevated regions 
throughout the country. A few plants are also included that 
are not normally mountain plants such as the common butter- 
cup, ox-eye daisy, pigweed, marsh marigold, and sweet clover. 
The book follows the accepted form for such things — the com- 
mon and scientific names, a technical description of stems, 
leaves, flowers and fruits followed by considerable matter of 
popular interest on a wide variety of subjects related to the 
matter in hand. The illustrations, one hundred in number, 
from photographs by the author, are of uniform excellence 
and of themselves worth the price of the book. The book will 
be most usable in the northern Rockies. Nobody visiting that 
region on botanizing bent should be without a copy and those 
in other mountain regions will find it desirable. (Boston, 
Ginn & Co., 1906. $2.00 net). 
Margaret Slosson's ''How Ferns Grow" is a book for the 
student of fern structure rather than for the cultivator of these 
plants. It consists of forty plates, illustrating the changes that 
take place in the fronds of some eighteen species of ferns from 
the sporeling to maturity with more or less explanatory text. 
The illustrations are illustrative though not very well done, 
and the text is not as lucid as it might be. Taken altogether 
however, it is a book that will be of some con- 
siderable value to fern students, but one that is not 
likely to have a very extended sale. The author has 
followed "The American Code" of Nomenclature, this ap- 
parently being the title of the style of nomenclature favored at 
New York and Washington. In this book Asplenium ruta- 
muraria will be found under Belvisia ruta-muraria. (New 
York. Henry Holt & Co., 1906. $4.00 net). 
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