This laboratory manual is a companion to “An Introduction to the Plant Kingdom” by Norman H. Russell (1958). The authors state that it is expected to apply very well in advanced surveys of the plant kingdom, and that certain exercises may be left out, making it readily usable in introductory courses.
Miss Casey’s attractive little book is a welcome addition to the literature concerning the wild flowers of Texas and adjoining regions. It does not pretend to include all, or even the most common, flowers of any particular region. Nor are all the species discussed found native in Texas. But the book will be very helpful to teachers, gardeners, tourists, and amateur botanists of the area. Black-and-white photographs of over 100 species are given and these should be very helpful in making identifications. The descriptions are non-technical but are also useful in identifying common plants. Interesting stories and “side-lights” make the book most readable and provide material useful in developing in young people a real love of Nature. The author’s own love of Nature is reflected in the pages of the book and it is to be regretted that her untimely death in 1958 came before her book was published. There are often hints of an ecological nature that should prove of practical value for gardeners who try to grow the plants.
Brooks and Margolin gave localities for the Narrow-leaved Chainfern, Lorinseria areolata (L.) Presl, in West Virginia as “in mountain bogs”, citing Droop Mountain Swamp in Pocahontas County and Pine Swamp in Mineral County. They also stated that “both the colonies found in the state are in sphagnum bogs, . . .”. Nicely recently reported an additional station in Greenbrier County.
Since the publication of the paper (Schumacher 1958) concerning the presence of desmids in the bladders of certain living Utricularia, the question has arisen whether this phenomenon occurs in other species of Utricularia and in areas other than North Carolina. If an examination of dried material would reveal a number of desmid cells that could be properly identified then it could be assumed this endophytonic relationship exists between these plants when alive. In the hope of answering this question, herbarium specimens were obtained of Utricularia foliosa L. from Porter Pond, Georgia; Utricularia gibba L. from Oswego, N. Y.; and Utricularia vulgaris L. from Fairbanks, Alaska.
p. 40) state that Athyrium thelypteroides, the Silvery Spleenwort, “probably occurs in every county in the state”. Forty-three counties are listed, but new county records are the following two, Clay and Nicholas.
A comparison is made of the present vegetation of Spruce Knob, West Virginia, with that of 51 years ago, as reported by A. B. Brooks. Since 1908 the area has been protected from fire, but has been more frequently visited as a result of construction of a road passing near the summit. The principal changes noted in the vegetation are: (1) increase in size and abundance of red spruce; (2) establishment of red maple; (3) establishment of at least two species of shrubs not present in 1908, and disappearance of several that were common at that time; and (4) establishment of several herbaceous species, including two naturalized exotics.
This preliminary list is as complete a catalogue of the vascular plants of Giles County, Virginia, as could be prepared from two, summers of field work by the authors (in 1956 and 1958 respectively) and from previous collections maintained in the herbarium of the Mountain Lake Biological Station on Salt Pond Mountain. These previous collections were made by several students and teachers of plant taxonomy who have worked in the area since the founding of the Station in 1930. The collections of Dr. H. H. Iltis are among the more important of these. The list is reasonably complete for the grounds and immediate vicinity of the Station and for much of Salt Pond Mountain. It undoubtedly has many omissions for the rest of the county, especially among the more ephemeral spring and late summer bloomers that were not recognizable during the ten weeks in which the Station functions each summer. We hope it will be useful to the students and staff of the Station while serving as the basis and stimulus for a more complete catalogue in the future. A few species not collected from Giles County, but from nearby areas across the county boundaries are included because of their ready accessibility to the Station and because of their probable occurrence in Giles County also.