THE EXPL01TATlO> OF PLANTS 125 



gives us more historical lore than the other lecturers and ends with 

 a suggestion from Mr. Bateson that scent-bearing and non-scent- 

 bearing may prove to be Mendelian characters. Dr. Marie Stopes 

 says that " we swallow coal products, wear coal products, scent our- 

 selves with coal products, nourish our flowers and crops with coal 

 products, destroy our enemies with coal products,'' and her lecture, as 

 may be imagined, is by no means the least interesting of the series 

 to the general reader; for just at present, when we tind it difficult to 

 get even a modicum of tea of any kind. Dr. Chandler's clear exposi- 

 tion of the real value of good tea reads too much like a counsel of 

 perfection. 



G. S. BOULGER. 



A Monogrcqih of fTie Calamites of Western Hiiroj)e. By Dr. R. 

 KiDSTON' & Dr. W. J. JoxGMAXs (Vol. vii. of the Memoirs of 

 the Government Institute for the Geological Exploration of the 

 Netherlands). Text, Part I. Atlas: Plates 1-158. Text 

 15 guilders, Atlas 45 guilders. M. Nijhoff, The Hague, 1917. 



Dr. Jongmaxs is a most indefatigable worker who has already 

 earned the gratitude of palaiobotanists by his bibliographical publica- 

 tions which, in spite of the enormous labour entailed, have not 

 absorbed the whole of his scientific energy. The present volume is 

 the first fruits of the joint work of Dr. Kidston and Dr. Jongmans on 

 the Calamites : it contains the results of their exhaustive and critical 

 survey of all the known species of the genus Cala?nites, and is an 

 authoi'itative S3^stematic analysis which will be of very great value for 

 paheo-botanists. The Atlas consists of excellent collotype reproduc- 

 tions of impressions of pith-casts and, in several instances, of stems 

 showing the external features. The reproduction of many type-speci- 

 mens and the large amount of first-hand information about the material 

 passed under review give exceptional value to the Monograph. 



It is unfortunate that foliage-shoots and cones are seldom found 

 in organic connexion with pith-casts, but by piecing together evidence 

 from different sources it is possible to obtain an accurate picture 

 of the habit of some of the Equisetaceous trees of the Coal period 

 forests. The surface of the trunk of a Calamite, as Williamson 

 concluded from his anatomical researches, was smooth and not 

 ribbed, though often longitudinally ci-acked or transversely wrinkled. 

 It is ]jrobable that the foliage-shoots were cut oif by a basal absciss- 

 layer like the branches of Af/atJi/s and some existing dicotyledonous 

 trees. Whorls of narrow lanceolate leaves are occasionally preserved 

 on impressions of fairly robust aerial shoots, and in some species they 

 are united into a continuous nodal sheath. A ])ith-cast of Calamites 

 qiqas Brongn., 20 cm. in diameter, affords striking evidence of the 

 lai'ge gii'th of some of the Calamitean stems. A sjjecies of a different 

 type is represented by Calamites jttbatvs (L. & H.), which ai)iiarently 

 had comparatively little secondary wood and more closely resembled 

 the modern herbaceous Equisetums. A few specimens are descril)cd 

 in which tlie ril)s and grooves arc by no mean> always alternate on 

 each side of a node. In Calamites taitianus K. & J., a new sj)ecics, 



