548 



Black currant, April 16, 1835. April 28, 1838. April 30, 1839. 

 April 9, 1841. April 18, 1843. April 27, 1845. 



Hewett C. Watson. 

 Thames Ditton, 

 May 6, 1846. 



Notice of ' Outlines of Structural and PJiysiological Botany? By 

 Arthur Henfre;y, F.L.S., &c.. Lecturer on Botany at the 

 Middlesex Hospital, late Botanist to the Geological Survey of 

 the United Kingdom. Part I. Van Voorst, London. 



Aided by the wonderful improvement in microscopes, and the great 

 advances in chemical science which have been made in late years, 

 several eminent physiologists on the continent have laboured to ex- 

 plore the secrets of vegetable nature ; but hitherto their publications 

 have been almost inaccessible to many persons in this kingdom, who 

 find it inconvenient to spend much money and time in the perusal of 

 foreign periodicals. Such readers will now find the first part of this 

 admirable little treatise an instructive summary of what has been 

 written on the subject of elementary structures, to be followed up in 

 two succeeding parts by an exposition of the organs of vegetation and 

 those of reproduction and general Physiology. The book is not a 

 mere compilation ; but one of a class which in these days is very 

 much wanted, where an accomplished student of Nature, judiciously 

 availing himself of the labours of his predecessors and contemporaries, 

 and submitting them to the test of re-examination, presents them in 

 a concise and lucid form, enriched with original comments of his own. 

 Here, too, the reader will find the various opinions of different writers 

 usefully contrasted. Mr. Henfrey has laudably aimed at the exclu- 

 sion of groundless hypotheses. The subject, indeed, cannot be pro- 

 fitably discussed without the introduction of theory. An actual 

 knowledge of the process of vegetation is at present beyond our reach ; 

 but there are analogies observable in the lowest and simplest plants 

 which tend to show that every individual plant originates in a single 

 cellule. This conclusion can only be met by the difficulty of ac- 

 counting for the diversity of structure presented by different parts of 

 the tissue in the higher tribes. Physiologists have not been able to 

 ascertain how many cellules exist in the embryo oak while it is yet 

 lodged in the acorn ; but it is almost impossible to conceive them to 



