1899] Notes, Reviews and Comments. 201 



BOOK REVIEW. 



Elementary Botany, by George F. Atkinson, Ph.B., 

 Professor of Botany, Cornell University, 444 pages, illustrated; 

 published by Henry Holt & Co., New York. Elementary 

 Botany of to-day is vastly different from that of ten or fifteen 

 years ago. This is largely due to the changed methods of 

 presenting to the student the rudiments of botany. The old 

 method introduced the pupil to the technicalities of systematic 

 botany by way of the arbitrary rulings of the Manual. If he 

 enjoyed puzzles of that kind he specialized in botany and the 

 natural sciences and eventually obtained his reward by seeing 

 the relationship of plants in a broad and comprehensive way ; 

 but if these analogies had been first observed it is probable that 

 the "analysis" of the flower would not have appeared so tire- 

 some. This work presented to the public generally, but to teach- 

 ers particularly, marks an important step in the new direction. 

 This newer method is, in the words of the author, "to study first 

 some of the life processes of plants, especially those which illus- 

 trate the fundamental principles of nutrition, assimilation, growth 

 and irritability. In studying each one of these topics, plants are 

 chosen so far as possible from several of the great groups. 

 Members of the lower as well as of the higher plants are em- 

 ployed, in order to show that the process is fundamentally the 



same in all plants In this way the mind is centred on 



this process and the discovery of the pupil that it is funda- 

 mentally the same in such widely different plants, arouses a 

 keen interest not only in the plants themselves, but in the 

 method which attends the discovery of this general principle." 



The volumn is divided into three parts. Part i is 

 devoted to the life processes of the plant absorption, transpiration 

 respiration, nutrition and the like. Part 2 discusses the 

 morphology of the plant and the relationships of different 

 families. Part 3, perhaps the most interesting section of the 

 book, is devoted to Ecology or the study of plants in their mutual 

 and environmental relationships. The author fitly points out 



