132 THP: AMERICAN BOTANIST 



book exactly describes it. Here tlie author has set down with 

 much sprightly humor the ideas suggested by her associations 

 with the flowers. Fact, fancy, suggestion, and opinion are 

 deHghtfully blended to form a new sort of book that all who 

 possess gardens will enjoy. There are no illustrations; such 

 a book needs none. The price is $1.50. 



In the "Story of the Maize Plant" Paul Weatherwax at- 

 tempts to clear up some of the mystery surrounding the 

 origin and distribution of that plant which the first settlers 

 designated as Indian corn, which we commonly call corn and 

 which is more properly known by its aboriginal Indian name 

 of Maize. This largest of the cereals — really a big-seeded 

 grass — is one of America's few important contributions to 

 the staple crops of the world. It appears to have originated 

 somewhere in Central America or Mexico but all trace of its 

 ancestors have been lost. There is a large Mexican grass 

 known as Teosinte which has often been suggested as the 

 plant from which our maize originated but the author con- 

 cludes that the only relationship between the two is that due to 

 descent from a common ancestor. More than two hundred 

 pages are devoted to other features of maize — the structure 

 and physiology of the plant, the morphology and homologies 

 of the two kinds of flowers, pollination, fertilization, seed 

 formation and even cultivation and harvesting. The ecologi- 

 cal and economic aspects of maize are also considered ; in fact, 

 it would be difficult to find anything of value about maize that 

 the author lias omitted. The book is intended for the general 

 reader and is well and clearly written. There are two color- 

 ed plates and 172 figures in the text. It is published by the 

 University of Chicago Press and costs $1.85, postpaid. 



A country that is using wood four times as fast as it is 

 being produced is headed straight for trouble, but this is ex- 



