94 THE JOURNAL OF EOTANY 



Mr. Ellis has, in a high degree, the enviable gift of a simple, 

 very readable style. The sentences are short and well-balanced ; tlie 

 chapters end before the reader tires ; he is reminded of lyndall in 

 his most juvenile vein. But the simple stvle is always attended by 

 the risk of misleading, if not actuall}^ inaccurate, explanation. From 

 the first page, for example, we learn that, by means of chlorophyll, 

 green plants " are able to manufacture ,/ro;;i the air ihe f oodwiih 

 which to build up their tissues '' : and frequentlj' through the first 

 ten chapters " food " occurs when *' carbohydrate -food " is correct. 

 The essential idea of photosynthesis — /. e., union by means of light, 

 chemical combination of atmospheric carbon dioxide with soil-water 

 by means of the radiant energy of the sun— cannot be insisted upon 

 too early nor too clearly in a book which has for the title of its first 

 chapter the ideal one of "The Living Plant." 



The first five chapters deal principally with the water-factor ; 

 and the wa}^ is prepared, with admirable skill, for the elements of 

 ecology, into which we find ourselves faii'ly launched in chapters vi, 

 vii. In obedience, perhaps, to the student's " economic interest and 

 environment," the next six are devoted to the soil alone. Chapter xiv, 

 on *' Cultivation and Manuring," approaches " Applied Botany " 

 more nearl}^ than any other section of the book ; but it comprises 

 only ten pages. In the next two chapters the subjects of Energy, 

 Respiration, and Food are treated with remarkable skill and lucidity ; 

 they are followed by chapters upon Germination, Growth, and 

 Movement ; we could wish to see explained more clearly and at 

 length the distinction between Monocot3dedones and Dicotyledones 

 in the matter of secondary'" growth and its relation to the morphology 

 of the leaf and its base. Chapter xx, on Vegetative Keproduction, 

 introduces budding and grafting : after a short chapter on " Some 

 Simple Types," the remainder of the book is devoted to fiowering 

 plants, seed-dispersal, variation, evolution, and classification, treated 

 in much the same way as in other elementary text-books. 



The badly reproduced pictures are not pretty to look at ; but 

 they appear in most cases to be original, and illustrate precisely the 

 points at issue and no more. What more can a picture do ? 



Altogether Mr. Ellis is to be congratulated upon the making of a 

 valuable addition to the literature of Elementary Botanv. 



' H. F. W. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



Whe]!«' it was recognized, about three years ago, that thei-e was 

 no prospect of holding an International Botanical Congress in the 

 near future, the Organizing Committee for the Congress which was 

 to have been held in London in 1915 asked that their Executive 

 Committee would re-open the matter of a Botanical Congress after 

 the war, when the time seemed favourable. The Executive Com- 

 mittee have recently considered the possibility of holding in London 

 a British Congress, at which botanists from the overseas dominions 

 might meet their colleagues at home and discuss subjects of common 

 interest. The programme would be wide, including the various 



