BOOK REVIEW 
BY 
Louis O. Williams 
Catalogo Descriptivo de las Orquideas Cubanas [De¬ 
scriptive Catalogue of Cuban Orchids], by Julian Acuna 
Gale. Boletin Tecnico No. 60, Estacion Experimental 
Agronomica, Cuba. 221 pages. Dated June 1938, issued 
about June 5, 1939. 
Mr. Acuna’s descriptive catalogue of Cuban orchids 
will be welcomed by his compatriots and by others who 
are interested in this delightful family of plants. The 
catalogue gives an artificial key to the seventy-nine gen¬ 
era of orchids which are accredited to Cuba. Each of the 
genera is characterized and a key to the component spe¬ 
cies is given, if there is more than one. Bibliography, 
synonymy and a specific description, as well as Cuban 
localities and often distribution outside of Cuba, are given 
for each species. 
It is the hope of the author that his little book will 
help beginners so that more people will become interested 
in botany and so that there will be more botanists in 
Cuba. With this objective in mind, one might have ex¬ 
pected a more conservative treatment of generic entities. 
One “feels” for the beginner (or the mature taxonomist 
for that matter) who attempts to key out a Cuban Spi- 
ranthes to one of the six segregate (or synonymous) 
genera which are given, by means of a key which makes 
use of rather recondite and none too accurately stated 
characters. Likewise one might possibly entertain doubts 
about the usefulness of the eight segregates of Epiden- 
drum which will be encountered, to only one of which 
Ames, Hubbard and Schweinfurth accorded even sub¬ 
generic rank in their recent monograph on Epidendrum. 
If the taxonomic outlook of the author may be said 
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