134 THE TEACHING BOTANIST 



phology and ecology, and constant practical direc- 

 tions for laboratory study. Similar in these respects 

 is Barnes's " Plant Life," a book but a few months 

 older ; but this is less a laboratory book, and more a 

 work for reading. More recent than either is Vines's 

 " Elementary Text-book of Botany," a thorough and 

 valuable work, whose plan, however, hardly fits our 

 methods of instruction in this country as closely as 

 do those of Barnes and of Atkinson. Somewhat the 

 same may be said of a text-book which is perhaps 

 in the abstract the best that has appeared in recent 

 years, the " Text-book of Botany," by Strasburger, 

 Noll, Schenck, and Schimper. This book is written 

 by four leading scientific experts, and is one of the 

 most reliable, readable, and best illustrated of botani- 

 cal books, and, whether used as a text-book or not, 

 it is an invaluable reference work that no library 

 should be without. It may be bought in two parts, 

 of which the first is of most importance to the aver- 

 age teacher. Another recent American text-book is 

 that by Curtis, " An Elementary Text-book of Bot- 

 any." Another work, particularly adapted to schools, 

 is Bergen's " Introduction to Botany," which com- 

 bines both text-book and laboratory directions, and is 

 modern in matter and spirit. For schools that have 

 scanty equipment and cannot give abundant time to 

 a course, this work is particularly advantageous. 

 Gray's " Elements of Botany ' is in its own field a 



