When Dr. Benson published his text on “Plant Classification,” he said another book was needed to supplement it, this being an advanced text on the principles of taxonomy. The present text is that book, as its name implies; it contains no plant descriptions nor even a classification system. Rather, it deals exclusively with the methods of taxonomy, instead of with the plants themselves.
This is an introductory botany text, with the best set of interrelated facts that this reviewer has seen. The book is written from the standpoint of economic botany, relating the values of plants to their ecological, physiological, reproductive, etc., characteristics. There are four main parts to the book, beginning with “Man and the World of Plants.” After this survey of the plant kingdom, the “Levels of Plant Organization,” including molecules, cells, tissues and organs, organisms, and communities, are discussed. “Plants in Action” follows, with excellent discussions of the physiology, methods of growth and movement, and environmental relationships of the plant The continuation of the race is covered in a section containing reproduction, heredity, and evolution.
It has long been customary for members of the Committee on the Virginia Flora, a more or less voluntary organization of botanists scattered throughout the State, to comment facetiously that the most recent book on the State flora was published two centuries ago, reference being made to the “Flora Virginica” of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius, which first appeared in 1739. This expression is no longer apt, however, for there appeared in December 1961 A.B. Massey’s long-awaited “Virginia Flora,”* an annotated catalog of plant taxa recorded for the State.
E. Gibbes Patton, Director of the University of Alabama Arboretum, has issued a mimeographed extract* from Mohr’s “Plant Life of Alabama,” with the following comment:
R. K. Godfrey and Her man Kurtz, in an article appearing in the June 8, 1962 issue of SCIENCE, note that the relict Florida torreya (TORREYA TAXIFOLIA Arn.) is already all but extinct in its natural habitat and call for prompt and bold measures to attempt its preservation in cultivation.
In the summer of 1961 I was walking through a field in Towson, Md. when I saw what appeared to be a manhole. Actually, it was more like a small well with water in it and there were ferns growing out of the rocks near the top. Since I couldn’t identify them, I took a plant to Mr. Richard C. Ward, of Guilford College, and he told me that it was Pteris cretica (L.) Small. This plant heretofore has been found in the United States only in Florida.
Myrica pusilla Raf. Dr. W. L. Tolstead of Davis Elkins College first observed this colony near Beverly, but not being familiar with our flora assumed these to be common and native here. This is a well established colony and since it is near a stand of White Pine planted by the C.C.C. Boys, I assume it to be introduced.
The sundew, Drosera rotundifolia, grows in a non-bog situation near Clarion, Pennsylvania. The plants are growing on partly submerged logs in a shallow pond. Patches of plants are in association with mosses, including Sphagnum, Marsh St. John’s-wort (Hypericum virginicum) and Water Horehound (Lycopus virginicus).
The West Virginia University library has just received a collection of letters as a gift from Dr. Harold N. Moldenke, Director of the Trailside Nature and Science Center at Mountainside, New Jersey, oldtime friend, classmate and colleague of Earl L. Core. These letters are a selection from his personal files of correspondence with scientific workers in all parts of the world over the past forty years, selected with a view of preserving the authentic signatures of these distinguished scientists, and, wherever possible, also a sample of their normal handwriting. This collection will be of considerable value to students of cheirography in years to come, as well as to biologists and historians of the future as a typical cross-section of the botanists, zoologists, and other natural scientists who were most active in the 1922 to 1962 period of history. There are some 1300 letters in the collection, from 1175 scientists of 69 countries.
Three species that have escaped and are becoming fairly well naturalized in eastern West Virginia and western Maryland are: