TWO AMERICAN TEXT-BOOKS 349 



with a single exception, are printed from the plates prepared by 

 Sir Joseph Banks towards the close of the eighteenth century. 

 The exception is a plate of Myruiecodia Beccarii Hk. f., reproduced 

 by the late Robert Morgan from the original drawing made in 1773 

 by J. F. Miller. The first published notice of this remarkable 

 plant of New South Wales was by Sir Joseph Hooker in this 

 Journal for 1868, when it was referred to a DecandoUean species. 

 In 1882 Von Mueller referred it to a species of Gaudichaud. It 

 was not till 1886 that Sir Joseph Hooker described a plant col- 

 lected by Beccari which Mr. Britten has shown to be specifically 

 identical with the New South Wales species. It is a real gain to 

 science to have the careful diagnosis printed which was drawn up 

 by Solander one hundred and thirty years ago, and this accompanied 

 by Miller's drawing. 



Everywhere the critical acumen of the editor is apparent. He 

 has done the work as if he loved it, and, indeed, he never works 

 more con amove than when he is restoring the credit and vindicating 

 the worth of men who liave been by accident or intent more or less 

 overlooked. In his Australian Flora, Mr. Bentham brought together 

 all that was known of the plants of that great continent ; but he 

 somehow did scant justice to these earliest explorers of the Australian 

 Flora. The volume before us deals only with the plants that had 

 been engraved more than a century ago ; the collections made by 

 Banks and Solander, preserved in the Herbarium of the British 

 Museum, and the systematic descriptions of Solander, also pre- 

 served there, are much more extensive than appears in this published 

 work. Nevertheless in this second part nearly half of the species 

 described were not known by Bentham as having been found by 

 Banks and Solander. We may further note the care with which 

 the editor has dealt with the species of Utricularia included in this 

 work, and the restoration of earlier published names which he 

 justified in a paper in this Journal for February last. 



Two American Text-Books. 



Practical Text-Book of Plant Pkysiology. By Daniel Trembly 

 Macdougal, Ph.D., Director of the Laboratories of the New 

 York Botanical Garden. 8vo, pp. 352, tt. 159. Longmans, 

 New York, &c. 1901. Price 7s. 6d. 



Methods in Plant Histology. By Charles J. Chamberlain, Ph.D., 

 Instructor in Botany in the University of Chicago. 8vo, 

 pp. 160, tt. 74. The University Press, Chicago. 1901. 

 Price 1.50 dol. net. 



In his Practical Text-Book of Plant Physiology, Dr. Macdougal 

 has brought together directions for a somewhat exhaustive series of 

 experiments and demonstrations relating to the physiological side 

 of botany. *' A discussion of the principles of the subject is inter- 

 woven with the directions for practical demonstrations in order to 

 afford means of interpretation of the experimental results secured; 

 such discussion is naturally limited to the statement of prevalent 

 generalizations in greater part ; the space at command does not 



