Vol.VI., No. 54.) BULLETIN OF THE ToRREY BoTANIcAL CLUB, [New York, June, 1879. 
§ 320. The Botanical Text Book, Sixth Edition.’ Part Z., Struct- 
ural Botany, or Organography on the Basis of Morphology. To which 
ts added the Principles of Taxonomy and Phytography, and a Glossary 
of Botanical Terms, by Asa Gray, LL.D., &c. Ivison, Blakeman, 
Taylor & Co., New York and Chicago.—We think it must have been 
Gray’s Elements of Botany, published about 1836, which gave us our 
first insight into the science. We well recall the delight with which 
we read the clear elucidation of the subject—delight in the method, 
for we had no particular experience in the matter. This clear 
method, the presentation, of Structural Botany on the basis of 
Morphology, has been continued and improved upon. in all the 
successive editions of the Text Book, the first of which was published 
in 1842, and the fifth so long ago as 1857. So great has been the 
growth of the science in the interim, that it has been found advisable _ : 
to divide the sixth edition into four volumes, of which the present, 
on The Structural and Morphological Botany of Phaenogamous Plants, 
properly appears first, and will undoubtedly for years to come be the ~ 
main text book on the science in our colleges and scientific schools, 
containing as it does the latest results in this department, treated 
with a mastery and a clearness of which we know no equal. The 
second volume, on Physiological Botany (Vegetable Histology and 
Physiology), is ‘assigned to Prof. Goodale. The third volume, the | 
Lntroduction to Cryptogamic Botany, both Structural and Systematic, 
will be the work of Prof. Farlow. A fourth volume, a Sketch of the — 
Natural Orders of Phaenogamous Plants, and of their spectal Morph- 
ology, Classification, Distribution, Products, &c., will be needed to — 
complete the series; this we earnestly hope that Dr. Gray will live 
to accomplish. We may then learn his final views as to the vexed © 
questions in the arrangement of the natural orders. At present he 
gives a general but decided recommendation to that of Bentham & 
Hooker. Of Dr. Gray’s great services to the Science, a most signi- 
' ficant one is that he has been able to gather about him, to share and © 
carry on his work, men like Watson, Goodale and Farlow. : 
The present edition has_been entirely re-written, and as there is 
no want of elementary works, this is intended to serve as a text book — 
for the higher and complete instruction. ‘The relegation of the phy- — 
siology, &e., to the other parts has left room for the fuller treatment in © 
this of those morphological points which in late years have received the — 
greatest development. The volume contains 442 pp. against 555 in- 
the 5th edition, and 314 against 350 in the chapters relating properly — 
- to structural botany. Dr. Gray’s writings are noted for the proper — 
and strict application of terms, of which many additional examples are © 
here to be found. An interesting feature are the foot notes referring — 
to the literature of the more important additions and often to the 
history of a technical term. - 
Of the eight chapters, Chap. V., on Anthotaxy, and Chap., VL, | 
on the Flower, are the fullest of new and weighty matter, containing 
the discussion of the latest investigations, notably of Eichler in his — 
J Lee p13 oe 
