FUNGOEUM FOSSILIUM OMNIUM, ICONOGRAPHIA. 459 



The tables of relationship of the various groups of Fungi strike 

 us as exceedingly artificial, e. g, the important position assigned to 

 the ChmtocladiacecB. Of course the tables are not insisted on as 

 indicating more than possible affinities, often based on the most 

 superficial resemblances, as, for example, when the ColeochcetacecB 

 figure as the starting-point for the whole of the Bryophyta, but 

 they have a mischievous tendency to mean a good deal more to 

 students than they often do to their authors. But they are after 

 all perhaps necessary evils ; the danger is that they too often 

 prove whited sepulchres also. 



The treatment of Angiosperms, somewhat on the type-system, 

 is brief but rather good, and might perhaps with advantage be 

 extended in dealing with the unwieldly mass of forms included in 

 this group. 



On the whole, the book is one to which it is possible to extend 



a welcome. No one can hope to write within the limits of three 



hundred and forty-seven pages a text-book on so extensive a subject 



as botany which will please everybody ; but Dr. Curtis has at any 



rate succeeded in performing his self-imposed task better than 



many others before him have done. 



J. J3. r . 



Fungorum Fossilium Omnium, &c. Icojiographia Doct. Aloysius 

 MEscmNELLi. Sump. Auct. typis Aloysii Fabris & C. Viceti^e. 

 1898. Pp. XX, 144, tab. xxxi. Price 24s. net. 



We gravely doubt whether this work was worth doing in such 

 an elaborate way as the author has chosen. By far the greater part 

 of these so-called fossil fungi are mere markings on fossil leaves, 

 and nothing more. To take them so seriously as to illustrate them 

 in a number of expensive plates is surely an error of judgment. 

 There is not only no evidence that a large number of these forms 

 are, or have been, fungi ; there is at least a strong presumption in 

 some cases that the markings are due to other causes. For example, 

 Sclerotites SalishuricB Mass., figured on plate xxviii., is most probably 

 only impressions of glands in the leaf of Salisburia, if we may bring 

 the evidence of living Salisburia to their interpretation. The 

 author has displayed so much ingenuity and perseverance in col- 

 lecting this mass of rubbish, that we wish him a more fortunate 



task next time. ^ , , 



(j. M. 



ARTICLES IN JOURNALS ^ 



Bot. Centralhlatt (Nos. 40-43). — B. Schmid, ' Bau und Fun- 

 tionen der Grannen unserer Getreidearten ' (2 pi.). — (No. 41). 

 P. Knuth, * Beitrage zur Biologie der Bliiten.' — (Nos. 42-3). A. C. 

 Hof, ' Histologische Studien an Vegetationspunkten ' (2 tab.). — 



* The dates assigned to the numbers are those which appear on their covers 

 or title-pages, but it must not always be in-ferred that this is the actual date of 

 publication. 



