1891 ] Current Literature. 317 



* 



and smuts, which are among the best worked of the fungi, and which 

 show 8 per cent, increase since the volume on that group came out 

 three years ago, the rate at which new species are published is almost 

 appalling, and makes a work like the present well-nigh indispensable. 



A book for children. 



The books which are adapted to stimulate the interest of children 

 in the plant-world are few enough, when all are enumerated, and 

 those that are even tolerable can be counted on the fingers of one 

 hand. It is with much pleasure therefore that we welcome another, 1 

 for it belongs distinctly to the better class. Mrs. Bergen has very 

 happily named her little book "Glimpses at the Plant World," and 

 they are surely enticing glimpses which ought to engender a desire for 

 fuller knowledge. In thirteen chapters of five or six pages each the 

 author describes engagingly the different types of plants, yeast, moulds, 

 toadstools, lichens, fresh-water and marine algae, mosses, ferns and 

 flowering plants. The remaining chapters, about as many more, deal 

 with the fertilization of flowers and the methods of .seed distribution, 

 topics which are in their nature attractive and are here made so for 



children. 



Mrs. Bergen's style in this book is easy, in places colloquial, and what 

 is of much greater importance the statements which she makes are not 

 only well put but correct. We recall none that is absolutely incorrect 

 andvery few that one would even wish changed on account of possible 

 misconception. The publishers have given the little book a tasteful 

 dress, but some of the illustrations are open to criticism; such as that 

 of diatoms (?) on page 38, which is only a three inch black circle, with 

 a few scratches in it. The text deserves the best and most artistic 



work. 



A collector's gv&Ae. 



A new guide for collectors of phanerogams appears from the hand 

 of Professor Penhallow. » It contains concise directions for the col- 

 lection and drying and mounting of phanerogams chiefly, though 

 enough reference is made to the mosses to urge objections against the 

 use of half-size sheets for such smaller plants, objections which appeal 

 weighty to the author, we venture to say, only because he never tried 



'Bergen, Fannie D.— Glimpses at the plant-world. i6mo. pp. vi. 156. 

 Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1892. [«V.] 



'Penhallow, D. P.— The botanical collector's guide: a manual for stu- 

 dents and collectors; containing directions for the collection and preservation 

 of plants and the formation of a herbarium. i6mo. pp. 125. figs S. Montreal: 

 E. M. Renouf. 1891. — 75 cents. 



