178 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



extended account of all the abnormal plants known, and listed 

 the polypetalous dicotyledons in which such alinornial jilants 

 lia\c been found. The parts just received continue this list 

 througli the gamopetalous dicotyledons, the monoctyledons, 

 the conifers, tlie ferns, mushrooms and even the algae. Un- 

 der each species are described all the abnormal forms reported 

 for it and the place of publication of each example is given. 

 In preparing this work, the literature of the whole world 

 seems to have been carefully searched. Those who are en- 

 gaged in the study of plant "freaks" will find this work simply 

 invaluable for reference. The price is $6 unl^ound. 



Dr. William Mansfield's "Botany, Developmental and 

 Descriptive.'' is a textbook designed for use in high school 

 and college ])ut one that favors a type of work quite unlike 

 that which ordinarily finds a place in such institutions, be- 

 cause it is frankly an introduction to classification. Such 

 books, however, are still in demand 1)y students of medicine 

 and pharmacy where the identity of a given plant is often of 

 prime importance. Judged by its usefulness for the purpose 

 intended it seems to have very little in it that cannot be heart- 

 ily commended. It may be said, however, that although it is 

 logical to begin such a l)ook with the one-celled algae and end 

 with the highest flowering plants, this is not the order likely 

 to appeal most strongly to beginning students. We should 

 have been inclined to reverse this arrangement. The forms 

 taken as examples are carefully and accurately described and 

 the 135 illustrations are mostly new and made from photo- 

 graphs of drug plants. The text is remarkable for the number 

 of simple declarative sentences it contains. To those familiar 

 with botanical literature, the book is likely to recall Gray's 

 "Lessons with Plants" and Rusbv and Jelliffe's "Morphology 

 and Histology of Plants". For present day purposes, how- 



