l895 . SOME NEW BOOKS. 425 



"Text-book on Physiology," of which we should be glad to see a new 

 edition. 



It is unfortunate that the English edition of Dr. Warming's 

 excellent work on Systematic Botany should have appeared almost 

 simultaneously with the completion of Dr. Vines' Text-book. In the 

 latter the ordinary advanced student will find what he requires in 

 Systematic Botany with the addition of Morphology and Physiology; 

 while the Warming- Potter handbook is, to a great extent, a 

 repetition of the portion dealing with classification only. The price 

 of the smaller book is the same, and, for a translation, seems rather a 

 heavy one. Many teachers as well as the higher class of students will, 

 however, be glad to have the opportunity of reading a book which 

 was inaccessible to them in the original Danish. 



Recent tendencies in the arrangement of algae are to lay 

 continually less stress on colour grouping, and in Dr. Knoblauch's 

 revision, presented to us here, we find them divided into ten classes, 

 three only of which are Chlorophyceae, Phaeophyceae, and Rhodo- 

 phyceae respectively. It is somewhat surprising to find the bacteria 

 included as colourless algae. The fungi fall into three classes : Phy- 

 comycetes, Mesomycetes — a small class including intermediate forms 

 between the first and third, viz., the Hemiasci and Hemibasidii or 

 Ustilagineae, and the Mycomycetes or higher fungi, comprising Asco- 

 mycetes and Basidiomycetes. Lichens form appendices to each of the 

 two latter sub-classes, according to the nature of the fungal element. 



The Angiosperms occupy the larger half of the book (pp. 273- 

 end), and here we find a departure from the methods adopted in 

 English works, which are based on the system elaborated in the 

 Genera Plantarum. Dr. Warming's aim was to get a scheme which 

 should represent as nearly as possible the course of evolution of 

 complicated and " derived " floral structures from the simplest forms. 

 He therefore starts with the willows (Saliciflorae), where the male 

 flower consists only of a few stamens and the female of a single 

 ovary, and works up through the monochlamydeous and dichlamy- 

 deous polypetalous orders of Dicotyledons to the Sympetalae, which 

 culminate in the Compositae. A careful study of the whole reveals 

 the fact that we are still a long way from a phylogenetic classifica- 

 tion, if, indeed, such is possible with the materials now in existence. 



From a literary point of view the work is poor. It abounds in 

 slovenly writing and bad spelling. Many of the illustrations will be 

 new to the English student. These, however, have the effect of 

 making some of the old familiar figures look rather worn. 



The British Museum Catalogue of Mycetozoa. 

 A Monograph of the Mycetozoa, being a descriptive catalogue of the species in 

 the herbarium of the British Museum. Illustrated with 78 plates and 51 wood- 

 cuts. By Arthur Lister, F.L.S. Printed by order of the Trustees, and sold by 

 Longmans & Co., B. Quaritch, Dulau & Co., Kegan Paul & Co., and at the 

 British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road. London. 1894. Pp- 

 224 and 78 plates. Price 15s. 



The British Museum and the scientific public are indebted to Mr. 

 Lister for more than this beautiful and careful monograph. Mr. Car- 

 ruthers. in a preface, states that owing to the generosity of Mr. Lister, 

 the national collection has been extended so as to include all the 

 types described in this catalogue. 



The slime-fungi have a very peculiar biological interest. While 

 it is by no means certain that some of them, or all of them, may not 

 be degenerate from higher forms of fungi, yet the majority of them 



2 h 



