i896. SOME NEW BOOKS. sy 



which the subject is treated are admirably adapted to build up 

 gradually in the student's mind a harmonious conception of the plant- 

 body and its activities. The style is characterised by perfect lucidity 

 of description and exposition, combined with graceful phrasing and 

 exceedingly apt, often picturesque, illustration. These qualities, 

 indeed, unfortunately so rare in our elementary handbooks of science, 

 form the chief and distinguished merit of the work. 



We wish it were possible to praise the numerous figures with 

 which the book is illustrated. Their cheap and common appearance 

 is, of course, due to the style of reproduction adopted; but while those 

 taken from Le Maout and Decaisne are well chosen and useful, the 

 ones drawn expressly for the book are often quite unworthy of it. 

 What appears to be slovenly drawing is common, and actual 

 inaccuracies are not altogether absent. Without going into details, 

 we may draw attention to figs. 28, 38, 39, 40, 48, and 80, which are 

 somewhat conspicuously open to one or other of these charges. 



The weakest portion of the text is that devoted to anatomical 

 description. The account of the cause of the characteristic appear- 

 ance of the radial walls in the root endodermis (p. 42), and of the 

 method of exit of a rootlet from its mother-root (p. 46), the statement 

 that sieve-tubes contain " abundant protoplasm " (p. 58), and the 

 omission of any reference to xylem parenchyma in the stevn of 

 Helianthus, are isolated instances of misleading or inaccurate descrip- 

 tion. There is no proper distinction drawn between primary and 

 secondary medullary rays, and the statement that the rays of 

 the seedling shoot " must still exist " in the thickened stem of 

 the oak (p. 68) is quite misleading. The credit of " the most 

 probable explanation " of the large size of spring vessels belongs 

 to Haberlandt [Physiol. Pflanzen Anatomic, p. 371 ; 1884), rather than 

 to Strasburger. The pits in the walls of the wood-fibres of the 

 oak are distinctly bordered, not " simple oblique slits." The account 

 of leaf-fall on pp. 106-7 is inaccurate. The "layer of separation " is 

 quite distinct from the cork layer formed to heal the wound. The 

 treatment of the pericycle is unsatisfactory : its existence in the stem 

 is only recognised in a sort of grudging way, which cannot lead to the 

 formation of clear ideas in the minds of students. The " bast fibres " 

 are said, in a note on p. 62, to " have their origin in the pericycle." If 

 " bast " is used as a synonym for phloem this is a contradiction, further 

 emphasised in the Appendix, p. 206, last paragraph. If the pericycle 

 is to be mentioned at all, it should be explicitly recognised as a 

 separate morphological region, and a full description of its tissues 

 should be given, with an admission of the difficulty (or impossibility) 

 of delimiting it from the primary rays. But on p. 56 it is omitted 

 from the divisions of the " ground tissue," where, if anywhere, it 

 belongs ; so that the pericycle becomes a sort of anatomical pariah, 

 unrecognised alike by vascular and " ground " tissue. We have drawn 

 attention to these defects because the great value of an anatomical 

 training, however slight, lies precisely in the possibility of careful and 

 accurate observation, description, and classification of tissue relations, 

 and it is, therefore, of the utmost importance that students should be 

 made to have absolutely clear ideas on anatomical questions : but, of 

 course, these details form a very small part of an admirable book. 



The Appendix forms a useful series of instructions for carrying 

 out carefully-selected practical work. 



Natural Science has before protested against the high price of 

 these Cambridge manuals. Considering the style of reproduction 

 of the figures, it ought to be possible to produce a book of these 



