2'2S THE JOURNAL OP I?OTAXV 



conventional range ot the subject very well, the writer does not break 

 any new ground ; and things have not apparently' changed very much 

 in the last thirty years of this teaching. 



While acknowledging tlve care and multitudinous interests de- 

 manded in the ])roduction of such a volume, a botanical journal may 

 be permitted to pick a few holes. As a detailed exposition of scien- 

 titic botany the book does not compare in any wRy with the familiar 

 Strasburger, though it ma}^ prove more attractive to the general 

 reader. To the serious student the greatest demerit is the practically 

 entire want of references to wider literature. The skimpiest account 

 of an}^ phenomenon may suffice in a text-book, provided one can be 

 given reasonable references ; such cases may be illustrated by the 

 doubtful remarks on the vitality of seeds (p. 298) ; the speculations 

 on the origin of Wheat (p. 54S) which omit any reference to 

 Triiicum Mermoms ; the case of Cytisus Adami without mention of 

 Chimaera-forms, and the account of Mendelian segregation stopping 

 short of the " sixteen square " which alone renders the subject of any 

 practical value : even the account of Protococcus on the bark of 

 a tree, on the very first j^age, may come as a shock to many algolo- 

 gists ; Huxley's Profococcus had at least the merit of being fiagellated. 

 As examples of skating over thin ice may be compared the account 

 of " falling starch " (p. 126), and the recognition of a Fucus plant 

 as a " diploid sporoph^^te " (p. 387). The continual use of " germ" 

 for embrj^o has an irritating effect, when the word is used in many 

 senses from Bacteria to Germ-plasma, and much the same applies to 

 the use of '* e^g " for oosphere ; " Transpiration-Stream " is no 

 imjjrovement on the old Transpiration- Current, while " cohesion " and 

 *' adhesion " in floral organization seem somewhat archaic. Much of 

 the text will bear steady revision, and many of the conclusions are 

 loosely wn-itten : — " The w^hole vegetative system may be regarded as 

 a physiological scaffold, w^hile the mechanism of propagation is the 

 substantive building which is erected by means of it" (p. 210), 

 whatever it may be intended to imply, omits all reference to the fact 

 that it is reproduction as devoted to the improvement of the race 

 which is the main issue ; similarly, "The Central Question of Evolu- 

 tion comes finally to the origin of the Heritable Mutations " begs the 

 question as to why anything to begin with should be at all accurately 

 heritable. 



The publication of the volume also raises a wider issue ; it un- 

 doubtedly epitomizes the class of work taught, not only at Glasgow 

 by Professor Bower but also in many other botanical centres in this 

 country, as the routine of " Elementary Botany " ; and the point 

 arises as to what extent this class of modern Avork, largely plausible 

 and made *' interesting," really does afford a foundation for accurate 

 reasoning in terms of experiment, or deduction of genemlizations 

 from accurately observed facts, compai-able with the general presen- 

 tation of elementarj^ chemistry or physics, with which botanj^ as 

 the scientific analysis of the problems of plant-life, is expected to hold 

 its own. Is " Elementary Botany " to deteriorate in *' Nature 

 Study," or is it to be an exact science in which facts are stated, and 



