BRITISH PLANTS 53 



authors will in a future edition give the reader this most important 

 clue to the plant's true relation to its surroundings. 



In the second part the relation of varying morphology to the life 

 of the individual plant is considered, the various terms in use heing 

 explained and the biological significance of the forms noted. The 

 special biology of the climbing habit, of less usual methods of 

 nutrition (parasites, symbiosis, etc.) and of food storage, each receive 

 a chapter, and pollination and fruiting are dealt with at greater 

 length. 



The third part mostly considers the associations of plants and 

 their relation to the habitats in these islands ; it is preceded by 

 short chapters on Evolution, the Origin of the British Flora, and the 

 Classification of Plants. An attempt is made to remedy the 

 sketchiness of these by three appendixes on Weissmann's law of 

 Heredity, the Mendelian Theory, and Botanical Provinces, but 

 readers interested in these aspects should supplement the information 

 given. The work necessarily suffers a little from the difference 

 between vastness of the area to be covered and the necessary limita- 

 tions of publishing. Having written thus, it may seem contradictory 

 to ask for more, but a little more attention given to cryptogams 

 might stimulate the study of these groups by those who possess 

 microscopes. 



The indexing is good, and the print and paper very pleasing. 

 Some misprints and mis-spellings occur : e. g., Sueda, which appears 

 throughout. The book should certainly stimulate the reader for whom 

 it was intended. 



A. J. W. 



Studies in Fossil Botany. By D. H. Scott, D.Sc, F.R.S., etc. 

 Third Ed., vol. i. 8vo, pp. 434 ; 190 figures. 25s. net. London, 

 1920 : A. & C. Black. 



Each year that passes sees additions to our knowledge of the 

 plants of the past. In reviewing these advances, we may sometimes 

 notice that the paheobotanist has discovered forms which are allied to 

 living genera and which, as in the case of the fossil Osmundaceae, 

 carry back the history of a familiar group over untold ages. In other 

 cases the plants discovered are of strange types and apparently 

 unrelated to living forms, or, again, the investigator may have un- 

 earthed specimens which are synthetic and seem to unite some of the 

 characters of one known group with the possession of features which 

 are regarded as distinguishing some other different class of plant. 

 As with all other types of research, these discoveries are published 

 to the world in very many different journals in diverse countries and 

 languages, and only the few can see them all and form a view of the 

 knowledge which results. Dr. Scott's work gives a magnificent view 

 in its true perspective of the edifice which has resulted from the study 

 of fossil plants. It is an edifice built on a safe and substantial basis 

 of fact ; speculations reared like pinnacles on an unsubstantial basis of 

 problematical and badly-preserved specimens are eliminated; just 

 so much detail is added to show the nature of the building and the 

 texture of the work, while the main and usuallv uncontrovertible 



