158 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



relations of botany, the subject is commenced with the germination of 

 a seed, and the growth of this into a plant. After the formation of 

 the first bud, the further growth and increase from the buds into 

 branches, with their organs, is described. This is followed by the 

 morphology of roots, stems, and branches. Leaves are then treated 

 of, morphologically as foliage, and according to their general and par- 

 ticular characters. The flower and its parts succeed; and then the 

 fruit and seed, etc., are described. The subject of growth is then 

 treated physiologically, and descriptions of tissue follow. Functions, 

 chemical composition, and the flow of sap, are fully but briefly de- 

 scribed. Plants in their relationships to one another introduce the 

 subjects of species, genera, and higher groups, which lead on to nomen- 

 clature, methods of study, systems, and the art of collecting. A copious 

 Glossary of about 1200 terms concludes the volume; this appears to 

 us very full, though it contains only about 200 more terms than are 

 defined in Linnseus's 'Fundamenta Botaniea/ a remarkable proof of 

 the comprehensive knowledge of that great naturalist, and the com- 

 pleteness of his mastery of the technicalities of botany, and its re- 

 quirements. 



1 The work thus constituted, barely alludes to the vast and important 

 subject of Cryptogamic botany, which is considered, and rightly, as a 

 separate division of the science, scarcely admitting of elementary study, 

 as compared with Phsenogamic botany, and some branches of which 

 are further treated of in detail bv Sullivant and others, in the author's 

 1 Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States/ The whole, 

 occupying 230 octavo pages, is divided into thirty-four lessons ; and 

 much skill and judgment is shown in making these lessons of tolerable 

 uniformity in regard to time and matter. 



The illustrations are good, as explanatory of the subjects : they 

 amount to 360, and are said to be, almost without exception, original, 

 and do credit to the skill and botanical accuracy of Mr. Sprague, 

 who stands at the head of American botanical artists. Originality is 

 not however always desirable, and we think that some of the subjects 

 might have been advantageously copied. We cannot however too 

 highly praise Mr. Sprague's exertions in making the illustrations, 



wherever possible, from American plants. In the hopes that a book, 



on the plan of Lindley's 'School Botany,' but founded on American 

 plants, may soon appear in the United States, aud be illustrated by the 



