THE PLANT WORLD 47 



Book Reviews. 



A Course IN Botany AND Pharmacognosy, ^y Henry Kraemer. 8vo, 

 384 pages. $3.50. Philadelphia, 1902. 



This book has been prepared to meet the needs of students who intend 

 to make pharmacy their life work, and it is but proper that it should 

 be adapted to their needs, for as the author well says: "it does not 

 seem desirable to emploj^ the same manner of treatment in teaching 

 different classes of students whose ultimate aims are in many cases quite 

 diverse." The book is divided into parts, the first being devoted to the 

 cell, with a full account of its organized and unorganized contents, wall, 

 forms, etc., and the second to the vegetative and reproductive parts of 

 plants. In these pages the student will doubtless acquire all the infor- 

 mation necessary to an understanding of the main object, which is, of 

 course, pharmacognosy. In this portion, which takes up the larger part 

 of the book, descriptions are given of crude vegetable drugs as well as 

 drugs in the powdered form. There are "keys" for the study and 

 identification of various substances, and a series of well-executed plates, 

 showing the structure of various plant organs. The information in the 

 latter portion is very full, and should prove of great value in this study. 

 It is one of the best books treating of this subject. f. h. k. 



Introduction to Botany. By William Chase Stevens, Professor of 

 Botany in the University of Kansas. 12mo, pp. V, 436. Key and 

 Flora pp. 127 additional. With many illustrations. Boston, D. C. 

 Heath and Company. Price complete, $1.50; without Key and 

 Flora, $1.25. 



A generation ago the student of botany was obliged to make his se- 

 lection of text books from the works of Gray and Wood, the various 

 grades of which satisfied all requirements. The enormous increase of 

 our knowledge during the past decade in the branches of cytology, 

 histology, morphology, and embryology has created a demand for more 

 modern works in the secondary and high schools, and this demand has 

 resulted in a tremendous output of volumes. But it is a curious fact 

 that in all these later text books some essential elements seem to be 

 lacking. The authors being in most cases specialists, have given undue 

 prominence to certain portions of their theme, or in the effort to con- 

 form to modern thought have forsaken that simplicity of language so es- 

 sential in works intended as manuals of instruction. It is a pleasure to 

 record the fact that to the mind of the present reviewer Professor 

 Stevens has approached more nearly than any of his contemporaries the 

 ideal text book of botany. 



