BOTA>i OF TirE LITIXG PLAXT 227 



subject in an entirely English dress. To the rising generation, 

 the works of continental writers will never acquire the hall-mark of 

 super-scientific value with which they have been regarded ; and as the 

 Oxford University Press has apparently exhausted its supply of 

 inferior translations, and the Cambridge Press has not yet found a 

 satisfactory method of subsidizing really good work, Messrs. Mac- 

 millan are to be congratulated on filKng the gap with an eminently 

 readable and abundantly-illustrated volume of convenient size, though 

 at an inconveniently high war-price. Seven shillings and sixpence 

 should be about the limit for this class of work ; the first edition of 

 the Bonn text-book, of very much the same size and scope was issued 

 at six-and-sixj)ence. 



The volmne comprises a series of 32 chapters, arranged as a 

 sequence of lectures or pleasantly-written essays on plant-organization, 

 beginning with the more familiar types of higher Land-Flora and 

 extending in a cursory manner to some algal and fungus types, as 

 generally introduced in an elementary course at all British Universities. 

 The book in fact covers the general ground of all such class-work, and 

 may be utilized for all elementary university examinations ; though 

 on the whole it is perhaps more particularly dedicated to the general 

 scientific reader who wants a rapid review of a wide field, while the 

 price will place it beyond the range of most students. After the 

 experience of the Bonn text-book, in which four writers collaborate, 

 it is a bold venture for one man to attempt an adequate presentation 

 of the subject as a whole ; but as this commonly falls to the lot of 

 teachers in British institutions, it is interesting to see how Prof. Bower 

 has covered the ground. 



Emphasis as to the " Living Plant " is apparently intended to 

 indicate that formal anatomy is cut down to the minimum ; physio- 

 logy possibly even beyond the margin of safety; while increasing 

 attention is paid to the ** biological " problems of the plant, as 

 expressed in chapters on the " Water-Eelation," " Mechanical Con- 

 struction," " Vegetative Propagation," " Fruit and Seed-Dispersal " ; 

 the Angiosperm being covered in some 300 pages, few openings being 

 without an illustration. As special features may be noted, a final 

 chapter on ** Sex and Heredity," while an Appendix in smaller type 

 solves the difficulty of bringing in some sort of traditional account of 

 Floral Families without trespassing on the main trend of the text. 



The main chapters are written with the breezy directness one 

 associates with the work of Prof. Bowser, though one misses the dog- 

 matic enthusiasm which led to the demonstration of JLycopodium 

 Selago as the most archaic of Land-forms ; and one's greatest admira- 

 ration is exercised for the ingenious manner in which the writer 

 so often evades the point rather than insist on any particular attitude 

 or conclusion. Hence though the volume fulfils its mission of adding 

 one more view of the subject to many existing works of much the 

 same scope, it does not add any particularly new outlook on plant- 

 life in general. One still finds little suggestion of answ^ers to 

 such fundamental questions as where a land-plant really came 

 from, or why plants are made of cells at all. or why they reproduce 

 in such an extraordinarily complex manner? While covering the 



