206 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



endeavour to unravel from the teclmicalities of zoologists, obsessed 

 with the remarkable constancy of their scheme of sexual reproduction, 

 a reasonable outlook on the variety of phenomena of cytological life- 

 history presented in plants, freed from conce^Dtions of " maturation " 

 and " germ-cells." 



A very full and clear statement of the general facts of mitosis 

 and meiosis in animal types is followed by theoretical discussion of 

 modern cytological problems, the botanical side being practically 

 restricted to slight notices of chromosome-behaviour in mutant- 

 hybrids of CEnothera, tetraploid Primulas, double Stocks, and rogue 

 Peas. Though the bias of the work is distinctly zoological and 

 Weismannic, there is much that is absolutely indispensable to the 

 botanical student. No biologist can afford to neglect questions of 

 linkage, sex-determination, the role of chromosomes in Mendelian 

 segregation, or views of their more intimate structure, particularly as 

 suggested by the story of the Drosopliila %. A brief and clear 

 statement of the general facts from the zoological side is a botanical 

 necessity, and the present volume presents the case as neatly as may 

 be, and not at too great a length. A. H. C. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



In the Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany, xlv. no. 301) 

 issued July 8, Mr, N. E. Brown has a long and important paper on 

 " New and Old Species of Mesemhryonthemiim, with critical notes." 

 He prefaces it by an account of the history of the genus, starting 

 with the works of Haworth (1794-1821), whose descriptions are 

 elucidated by the large collection of drawings in the Kew Herbarium 

 by George Bond and Thomas Duncannon, many of them made from 

 the types of Aiton's Hortus Kewensh. He calls attention to the 

 need for a thorough revision of the nomenclature of all the species, 

 and gives the emphasis of italics to the remark that "this work can 

 only be effectually accomplished by an investigation of the informa- 

 tion stored up in the Kew Herbarium and at the British Museum." 

 Mr. Brown is of opinion that some of the plants in the " Sphseroid " 

 group should be separated generically, but for the present retains 

 them as sections of Mesemhryanfhemum, with a diagnostic Key. A 

 large number of new species are described, many of which are 

 figured on the six plates (printed in a curious but not unpleasing 

 violet tint) by which the paper is illustrated. The importance of the 

 British Museum collections forms the text for Mr. Britten's paper 

 on ** Some early Cape Botanists and Collectors," which is briefly 

 summarized in this Journal for 1918, p. 63. It is accompanied by 

 a portrait of Francis Masson. — whose important collections, still 

 imperfectly examined, are in the National Herbarium — reproduced 

 fi'om an oil-painting bought from a general dealer at Hounslow by 

 Mr. Carruthers, and by him presented to the Linnean Society. A 

 review of the genus CJilorochytrium, by B. Muriel Bristol, M.Sc, 

 with three plates, and a description of a new^ Lohosteiuon (Z. magni- 



