PLANT-LIFE ON LAND 237 



To return to the English names, with which we are naturally 

 chiefly concerned, it is unfortunate that the compiler was not 

 acquainted with the English Dialect Dictionary , in which will he 

 found many not included in his list. Our colonial floras would 

 have increased his knowledge of Australian and New Zealand 

 names, and he does not seem to know of the long list appended 

 to Grisehach's Flora of the British West Indies. On the other 

 hand he occasionally quotes, from Ulrich's Internationales Worter- 

 buch der Pflanzennamen, " English " names which, not appearing 

 elsewhere, seem to be based on some misreading or misappre- 

 hension ; and sometimes makes suggestions which a more intimate 

 knowledge than he could be expected to have w^ould show to be 

 unnecessary — e. g. " Crossflower (Epln. 525) in my opinion a mis- 

 print for crow-flower" is a perfectly reasonable suggestion for one 

 who is not acquainted with the legend which regards the spots on 

 the leaves of the plant as a consequence of its growth at the foot 

 of the Cross : he may rest assured that " misprints " are very few 

 in, although not altogether absent from, " Epln." It would pro- 

 bably have been difficult to indicate the source from which each 

 name is derived, though it may be intended to do this in the 

 second part; as it is, one has no means of judging whether or no 

 the source is such as to command confidence. 



Considering the typographical difiiculties attendant on such a 

 work and notwithstanding the long list of errata prefixed to each 

 volume, we think Herr Gerth van Wijk is to be congratulated on 

 the accuracy with which the names — the English ones at least ; 

 we cannot judge as to the rest — have been printed. The writer 

 of this notice may claim to know something of the trouble which 

 a book of this kind, even on a much smaller scale, involves ; and 

 he congratulates the compiler on his successful achievement. 



Plant-Life on Land, considered in some of its Biological Aspects. 

 By F. O. Bower, Sc.D., F.E.S., Eegius Professor of Botany 

 in the University of Glasgow. Cambridge University Press. 

 1911. Pp. 172. Price Is. 



The object of the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Litera- 

 ture, to which series this little volume belongs, is to place within 

 the reach of ordinary readers authentic information as to the 

 views entertained on good authority concerning recent scientific 

 discoveries or the tendency of modern thought. 



In the present instance. Professor Bower aims at conveying 

 such information to those who take an intelligent interest in 

 plant-life, as may enable them to appreciate the conclusions 

 arrived at by specialists in the various departments to which it 

 becomes more and more necessary for these severally to devote 

 their attention, and more particularly in regard to the great 

 central prol)lem, still far from ultimate solution — namely, how the 

 vegetal)le organisms now existing came to be such as they are, and 

 in the surroundings in which we find them. 



