64 THE PLANT WORLD. 



was the Purple Eragrostis {E. pectinacea), its long, graceful, purple 

 plumes being in fine contrast to the surrounding green. There were 

 a number of sedges, the prettiest one being the so-called Wool-grass, 

 which grows along roadside ditches or drains to a height of some 

 three feet. One meets with a number of introduced or ballast plants 

 such as Dusty Miller, Great Willow-herb and Evening Lychnis. In 

 little patches closely hugging the sand grows the Carpet-weed and its 

 red, succulent neighbor the Sea-side-Spurge. It is said that there are 

 two patches of Scotch heather ( Calluna vulgaris ) on the island, but 

 the natives carefully guard the locality and scowl at all intruders. 

 This has dainty pink blossoms. There is also, near the cranberry bogs, 

 a pretty pink-flowered Polygala or Milkwort {^P. poljgania) which 

 bears some of its flowers buried beneath the ground. These have no 

 petals, but ripen their fruit as well as the showy ones above. They 

 are called "cleistogens."--F/fr<^? A^. Vascy^ U. S. National Museum. 



. BOOK REVIEWS . . . 



A Text Book of General Botany. By Carlton C. Curtis; pp. 359, 



New York: Longmans, Greene & Co., $3 00 



Good text-books of botany are by no means rare, and a new aspir- 

 ant to favor must be of superior excellence to find an audience beyond 

 its author's class room. It needs but a cursory examination, however, 

 to show us that Dr. Curtis's work has been well planned, carefully 

 digested, and well written. It represents essentially the course in 

 laboratory work that is required of beginners in botany at Columbia 

 University, in which institution the author is instructor in botany. 

 The book is divided conveniently into four parts or chapters. The 

 first deals with the anatomy of the plant body, from the cell and its 

 contents to the intricate products of cell formation and growth. The 

 second part is devoted to plant- physiology, and gives a brief outline 

 of the most important facts on this subject. The third chapter is by 

 far the larger, embracing over 250 pages. It is devoted to systematic 

 botany and plant morphology, and consists of a short account of the 

 entire vegetable kingdom taken up by families from the simplest to 

 the most complex. It is especially full in the lower forms, of which 

 the author is a well-known student. The concluding chapter is a short 

 account of the paleontological history of plants 



The illustrations appear to be all new and are a welcome relief 

 from the figures that have been doing duty in our text-books for so 

 many years. The paper and typography are excellent, and altogether 

 the book is a welcome addition to our list of text-books. F. H. K. 



