BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Essentials of College Botany. — Though announced as the eighth 

 edition of ''The Essentials of Botany," by the senior author, this book^ 

 bears httle if any resemblance to the earlier one. In fact, as stated on 

 the title page, the revision has amounted to complete rewriting. Of 

 twenty-two chapters, the first five, written by the junior author, deal 

 with the fundamentals of morphology (Chapters I-III) and physiology 

 (Chapters IV and V). Chapter VI treats of the general principles of 

 classification, and each of the remaining sixteen chapters (except XXI, 

 "Special Adaptations") is devoted to a plant phylum, discussed in 

 evolutionary sequence, the last chapter being a key to the phyla of 

 plants, with their classes, orders, families, and illustrative genera. 



Laboratory directions alternate with reading matter. The impli- 

 cation would seem to be that the study of the text should precede that 

 of the specimen in the laboratory. Whether this or the opposite order 

 is best, is of course one of the many points on which teachers differ. 

 Another one of these points of controversy is illustrated by the nature 

 of many of the laboratory directions, where the student is told in ad- 

 vance what he is to see in his specimen; e.g. p. 12, "Examine the cells 

 of various fungi .... and note the absence of chloroplasts. " 



The pupil is frequently directed to begin his study of a form by a trip 

 for collecting it in the field. Query : How can a pupil "Look for Riccias " 

 (p. 248) in the field, who has never seen a Riccia in his life? 



Technical terms are quite frequently used before they have been 

 defined, and before the student may reasonably be expected to know what 

 they mean (p. 20, gametes, ascus, ascospore; p. 21, karyokinesis, 

 mitosis; p. 29, cambium; p. 50, osmotic action; p. 31, apothecium of 

 cup-fungi; etc.). This tends to make the text, in places, very tough 

 reading for a beginner. Would a freshman appreciate the statement 

 (p. 245) that the Riccias possess no "elaters," when this term is not 

 really explained until five paragraphs further on? 



The paragraph (p. 106) on the effect of light on growth, gives the 

 impression of perpetuating the idea, shown to be erroneous by careful 



'Bessey, Charles E., and Bessey, Ernst A., Essentials of College Botany. 

 Pp. 409, figs. 206. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1914. 



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