82 THE JOURNAL OK BOTANY 



tical work — ho devotes two to the Bryophyta and Pteridophyta, taking 

 Polytrichum, Funaria, Miarchantia, Aspidium, and Selaginella as 

 his main types. Four lectures are then devoted to JPinus sylvestris, 



one to the genus Pinus and its other more important species, seven to 

 some sixteen other leading generic types, and a concluding lecture to 

 the comparative anatomy of the coniferous foliage-leaf. The leading 

 species, nearly fifty in all, are fully described or at least discriminated : 

 there is even some reference to the extinct links in the series which 

 are preserved to us as fossils; and the characteristics of the chief timbers 

 are also given. This is, we think, an admirable steering between the 

 Scylla of the type-system and the Charybdis of merely descriptive 

 work. The so-called "alternation of generations" from Bryophyta 

 upwards, the histology and development of the vascular bundles, the 

 formation of heartwood and of knots, the adaptatLonal factors of 

 xerophytes, embryological recapitulation, seed-dispersal, germination, 

 and the geographical distribution of pines, as well as the inevitable 

 discussion of the morphology of the cones, are among the topics that 

 receive thorough, if incidental, treatment in the first of the two series 

 of lectures. What appears to us as the most valuable side to the 

 whole of Mr. Church's teaching — the insistence on the thorough 

 discussion of the precise homology of structures— is even more 

 apparent in the second and much more advanced series of notes, which 

 are professedly supplementary to the preceding series. After discussing 

 phvllotaxis, branching, and dorsiventrality, seven lectures are devoted 

 to the cones, two, intensely interesting, being in conclusion given to 

 the relation of form- factors to phylogeny and classification, and 

 monstrosities. 



The two pamphlets are certainly not easy reading, but the}' will 

 well repay the student of plant-structure for the labour that their 

 perusal necessitates. 



G. S. Bouloeb. 



An Introduction to the Struct ure and Reproduction of Plants. By 

 F. E. FiuTcn, D.Sc, Ph.D., F.L.S., and E. J. Salisbury, D.Sc., 

 F.L.S. Svo, pp. viii, 45S ;" 2 pis. & 225 text-figures. London : 

 Bell & Sons, 1U20. Price 15s. net. 



This volume has been prepared in response to the demand for a 

 sequel to the Introduction to' the Study of Plants by the same 

 authors, from which the minute structure and details of life-history 

 that require the use of a microscope for their proper comprehension 

 were purposely omitted. Preferences to the earlier book are included, 

 and it is claimed that the two together form a comprehensive intro- 

 duction to the science of Botany, covering the syllabus for all Higher 

 School Examinations and adequate for the first-year student at the 

 Universities. Their position as teachers in the University of London 

 should enable the authors to estimate what it is desirable to include 

 in a text-book for students preparing for examinations ; the implied 

 contrast between such students and those " who really desire to learn 

 something of the role of plants in nature," for whom the work has 

 been in the first instance compiled, is a little naive. 



The subject-matter is divided into two parts, dealing respectively 



