Books and Current Literature. \71 



BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Transpiration in Salt-marsh Plants. — -Ouantitative 

 and analytic studies of plant transpiration are becoming fre- 

 quent. The paper before me, by E. Marion Delf, * is a well- 

 conducted piece of work of the newer type, on water loss from 

 such halophvtic forms as Snlicornja and Suacdi. In the open 

 ing paragraph is to be read a bit of the most egregious teleology 

 which it has been my misfortune recently to come upon. The 

 passage reads that halophytes ''are unable to absorb water 

 freely from the soil, owing to the danger of thereby bringing 

 into the tissues injurious amounts of salts. Since the absorp- 

 tion is thus limited, the transpiration must be also ditnished,'' 

 etc. The idea is attributed to Schimper and it is stated to have 

 been accepted by PfefTer and Jost. Gibson's translation of 

 )ost has it in a form nearly as poetical as the one quoted, but 

 I do not find it thus in Ewart's translation of Pfeffer. Per- 

 haps it may be a long time before current physiological literature 

 may be free from teleology, but the time for actual personifica- 

 tion of plants is surely past, and to suppose them to avoid a 

 danger is closely approaching that. The physiological dry- 

 ness of substrata is in crying need of much more study than it 

 has yet received. 



To obtain the area of the little boat shaped leaves of Suaeda 

 ten leaves were laid side by side upon the coordinate paper, a 

 tracing made around the whole, and the squares counted in 

 the usual way. The use of the planimeter, which 1 have found 

 accurate and verv much more expeditious than the method of 

 counted squares, was not resorted to. An ingenious method 

 was devised for checking the determinations of area obtained 

 bv calculation in the case of the regular stems of Salicornia. 

 This consists in coating the shoot with a celloidin film, slitting the 

 latter along one side, and removing, after which the method cf 

 squared paper is used. The film nmst not be allowed to dry 

 too thoroughly. 



The initial transpiration rates of cut shoots of the mesop- 

 phvtic Mecurialis annua, green and crimson Salicornia and 

 Suaeda, all side by side in the open, were determined by weigh - 



♦Delf E Maiion. Transpiration and behavior of stomata in halophytes. Ann. Bot 

 25. 485-505. 19U. 



