BOTANY. 



By Prof. William G. Farlow. 



PEOGRESS IN 1879. 



During tlie year 1879 publications on botany have been numerous in 

 all departments of the science, especially on the subjects of ciypto- 

 gamic botany and vegetable physiology, but the number of works of large 

 extent and those which the Germans would describe as epoch-making 

 is comparatively small. The activity of the botanical world during the 

 year is shown, however, by the large numbers of papers^contuining either 

 the results of observations on detailed subjects in vegetable aitatomy 

 and morphology, or in descriptions of new species, both of pha^nogams 

 and cry]>t()gams. The proportion of valuable papers relating to the 

 effects of light on plants, to the physiological relations of the different 

 coloring matters, and to the action of the different forms of ferment is 

 also to be noticed. 



GENERAL. 



The Chronological History of Plants, or man's record of his own ex- 

 istence, illustrated through their names, uses, and companionshii), is a 

 quarto of over 1200 pages by the late Charles Pickering, It is an 

 immense collection of scatteretl facts about different common and culti- 

 vated i)lants, and the press- work is extraordinarily well donel. Graifs 

 Botanical Text-Boole, Part I, Structural Botany, now appears as one of 

 a series of three volumes, of which the second and third volumes are 

 to be devoted respectively to i)hysiologicaI botany and cryptogamic 

 botany. The part which has already appeared is modeled on the author's 

 well-known Structural and Systematic Botany, but with much additional 

 matter. The first part of Luerssen's Handbuch der Systematischen Bo- 

 taniJc, intended especially for the use of medical students and ai)Othe- 

 caries, is devoted to cryi)togams, and both text and plates are excellent. 

 The Handbuch der BotaniJc, by Scheuk, which forms a part of the Ency- 

 clo])wdie der Naturwissenscha/ten appeared in part in 1879, and contained 

 articles by Hermann Miiller on the Relations between Flowers and their 

 Crossing by means of Insects, and by Drude on Insectivorous Plants. 



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