THKAMKRICAN BOTANIST 89 



which one must submit a degree and write a thesis, pay from 

 $1350 to $1850 a year. If this is the best that ccjllege grad- 

 uates can do, they would have better taken a course in plumb- 

 ing or brick-laying. 



BOOKS AND WRITERS 



The appearance of a second edition of Dr. William Tr^ 

 lease's "Plant Materials of Decorative Gardening", four years 

 after the original volume was issued, is an encouraging sigr 

 of the growing interest in living plants. The volume is de- 

 \Mlcd to woody plants of which nearly twelve hundred forms 

 are enumerated with keys for their determination. This 

 great number includes, of course, practically all the woodv 

 plants in cultivation, exotic as well as native. All this is 

 comprised in a volume of 175 pages and has been made pos- 

 sible by the use of the most concise and direct keys. The 

 book is a companion volume to the author's larger work on 

 "Winter Botany" wherein many of the species discussed are 

 figured and more extensively described. "Plant Materials" 

 is a book that the gardner, the nurseryman, the landscape ar- 

 chitect and all others who come much in contact with the 

 woodv plants can scarcely do without; a fit companion to 

 many more pretentions works on trees, shrubs and vines. The 

 new volume has been throughly revised and brought up to date. 

 It is for sale by the author at Urbana, 111., for $1.00 postpaid. 



Somewhere near the lowest stratum of the plant king- 

 dom occurs an immense group of plants whioli lack clieoroi)hyll 

 and which, therefore must get their nourishment as animals do, 

 ready made from other living things. Part of this vast ag- 

 gregation, known as parasites get their food by attacking liv- 

 ing plants and animals often causing their death; another and 



