Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/516

 482 SYNOPSIS DER MITTELEUROPAISCHEN FLORA. The author says he has followed Otto Kuntze's method of dealing with forms which are distinguished according to different, non-correlative characters, and they are treated seriatim^ each series corresponding to a different principle of division, a method which appears to us highly artificial, and tending to an undue multiplication of varieties and subvarieties. A good deal of the complication thus introduced into the letterpress might have been obviated by a clavis of species preceding the descriptive text. This might have been drawn up on a merely practical basis with a view to naming, while the sequence of the descriptions of the species would indicate their phylogenetic relations. If it was, however, desirable to combine a synopsis of the phylogenetic relations with the clavis, then the distinction at least of collective species and species jtar' t^ox'yiv might have been easily expressed in the clavis itself. Another drawback of a technical kind to the work is the frequent use of abbreviations which are all but unintelligible, at least for those who use the work mainly for reference. No doubt we shall get a table of explanations in a later part, but for the present we must content ourselves with three lines on page 3 of the wrappers. In many cases the student will have to accept the method of abbreviating followed in the Synopsis as well as he can, by making himself familiar with its peculiarities. On page 41 we find, for instance, among the synonyma of Aspidium Braunii quoted, "^. ac. e. B, Koch, Syn. ed. 2, 977 (1845)." This is meant for " Aspidium aculeatum s. Braunii, Koch, &c." To find that out we have to go back to page 37, where we find the name Aspidium aculeatum the first time printed in full. Or, to quote another example of inconvenient abbreviations, we find on page 41, " Christ, a. a. 0." To get at the "a. 0.," or locus citatus^ we have to turn back, and after having come across the same reference not less than twelve times, we find it at last on page 37, in the very succinct form *' Christ, Schw. BGr.," which means "■ Christ, in Ber. Schweiz. Bot. Ges." This extreme conciseness saves, of course, a sheet or two, but this slight increase in the bulk of the work would have obviated the loss of time and the confusion now entailed on the student. In any case, references to a locus citatus should in no case go back beyond the page or the paragraph which contains them. A mysterious asterisk after each species or sub- species, often with one or more lines, is, so I am privately told, a very ingenious means, indicating the distribution within the area of the Synopsis ; but there is nowhere an explanation in the two parts published. These technical shortcomings, the blame for which has probably to be apportioned to some extent to the publishers, will certainly be regretted by many a student. Such are, however, the merits of the contents that he will gladly, though with a sigh, put up with them. The descriptions are, on the whole, short, clear, and in exemplary German ; the differential characters are emphasized by spaced letters ; the distribution within the area as well as without is indicated in a more general way in the case of widely distributed