332 TTIE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Since the time of Lauder Lindsay's attempt to popularize the 

 study to nature-students of the middle nineteenth century, there has 

 been no convenient introduction to the group in any available language : 

 an abbreviated account by Fiinfstiick and. Zahlbruchner (1898), in 

 the stereotyped style of the Pfianzenfamilien of Engler and Prantl, 

 has had to serve for general purposes. Lichenological specialists, 

 again, had retired into a language of their own,, the elegance of which 

 may compel admiration for Crombie (British Lichens, 1894), but it 

 resulted in few getting be} r ond the first page. 



Miss Smith's work is eminently readable ; terminology is simplified, 

 fanciful expressions are largely eliminated, and a useful glossary is 

 placed at the beginning. The lay botanist may perhaps object to the 

 extensive use of the expression ' fruit,' or the rather terrible word 

 ' squamules ' ; while ' copulation ' is certainly a curious term for 

 spermatogamic fusion. The arrangement of the work is exhaustive, 

 including sections dealing with historical aspects, the anatomy and 

 physiology of the symbionts, the general organization of the different 

 types of thallus and their special peculiarities, the mechanism of 

 reproduction, physiology of nutrition, and relation to biological 

 environment, with additional chapters on Bionomics, Phylogeny, 

 Systematy, Ecology, and various Economic Applications — running to 

 over 400 pages of text. In these Miss Smith shows a keenly analy- 

 tical mind, even r section bearing a number or letter, running to 

 paragraphs of the AA, ee, order, in a manner reminiscent of the late 

 Professor Marshall Ward, and suggesting that the scaffolding has 

 not been taken down. One would perhaps have liked to see more 

 details on such cytological points as the double reduction in the ascus, 

 or something on Lichenic acids beyond empirical formulae ; critical 

 details of the essential mechanism of fertilization are also left rather 

 vague ; but probably the time has not yet come for the weaving of 

 the whole story of the Lichen into a connected whole. The point of 

 importance is that Miss Smith has collected all the materials, and she 

 inspires confidence that there is nothing she has overlooked, even in 

 the case of papers which might well be consigned to oblivion. An 

 introductory note, repeated on the wrapper, rather apologises for 

 burdening the pages with citations ; but this is really the strong 

 feature of the book, and gives it its greatest up-to-date value. 

 References in the text are judiciously limited to authors' names and 

 dates in footnotes, and a very complete bibliography at the end covers 

 24 pages of small tjpe. All the chapters present the same thoughtful 

 review of the material available, and even where Miss Smith has let 

 herself go a little, as in the scheme of polyphyletic progi-ession of the 

 lichen-soma, the inevitable phylogenetic trees are kept within most 

 modest proportions. 



The volume, as a whole, constitutes an extremely valuable contri- 

 bution to British Botany : though necessarily a pioneer volume in 

 many respects, it is practically the first modern scientific work devoted 

 solely to Lichens, and as so will remain a classic ; while it may also 

 serve as a model of painstaking compilation for other writers in the 

 series. The few objections that can be takes to it refer to matters 

 beyond the author's control. The get-up of the volume, in the 

 luxurious style of the pre-war issue of West's Alga, has been appa- 



