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We thought, too, that the 5000-6000 years of the Cape Verde 

 Baobabs and the Mexican Taxodiums belonged to the same category 

 as the germination of ancient Egyptian seeds. A student's text- 

 book should be above anything fabulous or doubtful. The modern 

 student falls an easy enough prey to the hungry examiner, without 

 such extraneous help. 



In the Cryptogamic section we must refer to tlie subdivision of 

 Thallophytes. Dr. Schenck spurns the old grouping into Algae 

 and Fungi, as of no phylogenetic worth, and adopts instead ten 

 classes, fi2. ; — (1) Myxomycetes, (2) Schizophyta, (3) Diatomeje, 

 (4) Peridineae (DinotlagellatjE), (5) Conjugatae, (6) Chlorophyces, 

 (7) Phasophycete, (8) Rhodophyceae, (9) Characeae, (10) Eumycetes. 

 Classes 3-8 include Algte in the narrower sense. Class 10 similarly 

 the Fungi. The Lichens follow as an eleventh class. Among the 

 higher forms we notice Isoetes still in its old place near Sela<jineUa, 

 and not classed as a heterosporous eusporangiate fern allied to Sal- 

 viniacecR and MarsiliacetB. Tliis section is extremely well illustrated, 

 and the same may be said of Prof. Schimper's contribution on the 

 Phanerogams, which contains numerous blocks after Wossidlo. 



One feature of the Special part is the introduction of coloured 

 figures for many, but not all, of the poisonous plants, which, like 

 the officinal plants, are honoured with a separate index. We are 

 not sure that much is gained by this introduction of colour ; the 

 medical or pharmaceutical student is already too much given 

 to mere spotting to deserve further tips in that direction. Occa- 

 sionally, as in the figure of Daphne Mezereum (p. 463), the colour 

 obscures the floral characters. The scheme of classification adopted 

 for the Flowering Plants is not new to continental text-books. The 

 families, which are the natural orders of the Genera Plantannn, 

 are arranged in larger groups or orders somewhat comparable 

 with the series of the Monocotyledons or the cohorts of the 

 Dicotyledons to be found in Bentham and Hooker's work. On 

 p. 398 tlie student is informed that there appears to be much 

 evidence that the original Monocotyledons were grass-like and 

 wind-fertilised ; evidence, however, which is not forthcoming in the 

 account that follows. We should like to see some mention of 

 germination in considering the different families or groups. Are 

 not characters "appearing early in the life of an individual" "of 

 value for phylogeny"? Yet they are quite unnoticed. At any 

 rate such an account would add to the interest and value of the 

 description of a family. Take, for instance, the very characteristic 

 mode of germination of an orchid seed, or the difl'erences in 

 structure and mode of exit of the embryo in (jrraminecB and 

 CyperacecE respectively, coupled with their marked constancy in 

 one and the same family. Or again, the wonderful aftergrowth of 

 the cotyledons so frequent in the family Onagracece, and so extremely 

 rare elsewhere. We notice that the much debated Casuarina is 

 included, though not without a protest, in AmentacecB, the first order 

 of the Choripetalous Dicotyledons ; reference is, however, made to 

 recent work on this genus and others of the order. 



Finally, besides the two indices to which we have already 



