Abstract
THIS book is intended to serve as a popular handbook to the ferns of the United States. It will probably fulfil its purpose, in enabling the reader to identify the majority of the ferns described by means of their general habit, aided by the form of the sorus. To this result the numerous original illustrations, which are clear and accurate, will largely contribute. An artificial key to the species is provided, in which the authoress depends to a considerable extent on the degree of difference between sterile and fertile fronds to characterise the main groups. It is to be regretted that attention is not directed to the artificial nature of these distinctions, and that the natural arrangement was not adopted in the part devoted to the description of the species. In this we find the species of Osmunda separated in two groups, while the Ophioglossaceae are placed in the midst of the true Ferns. The brief account of the reproduction of ferns on pp. 30–35 leaves much to be desired. The figures illustrating this are poor, notably the drawing of a sporangium on p. 31, while the description is bald and in places misleading. No mention is made of the peculiar subterranean prothalli of the Ophioglossaceae. Had space been found by the omission of irrelevant matter in the opening chapters for a clear, simply written, and well-illustrated account of the life-history of ferns, with special reference to the native species, the book would have been none the less popular, while its educational value would have been greatly increased.
How to Know the Ferns.
By Frances Theodora Parsons. Pp. xiv + 215; and plates. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899.)
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L., W. How to Know the Ferns . Nature 61, 412 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/061412b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061412b0