Dec. 20, 1888] 



NA TURE 



171 



nteresting details about the countries and people visited, 

 old sometimes in a very quaint and amusing manner. The 

 task of following their routes and identifying the places 

 ;s appalling; but Dr. Bretschneider goes through it all, 

 balancing theories, and comparing modern descriptions 

 of the same places, with untiring patience and ever-ready 

 learning. 



The second paper is entitled " Notices of the Mediaeval 



(ieography and History of Central and Western Asia," 



I drawn from Chinese and Mongol writings, and compared 



with the observations of Western authors in the Middle 



Ages. These also refer to the period of the Mongol 



^^^supremacy in Asia, and are mainly drawn from records 



^^■||r warlike expeditions of the Mongols to the West in the 



^^^b^t forty years of the thirteenth century. These are 



preceded by bibliographical notices of the Chinese, 



Mongol, Arabic, and other books used, an historical and 



ethnographical sketch of the Khitan, Karakhitai, and 



L'igur peoples, and, more interesting still, a discussion on 



the information of the Chinese at the same period about 



the Mohammedans. 



The second volume opens with a curious specimen of 

 mediaeval cartography, a rude Mongol-Chinese map pub- 

 lished in the first half of the fourteenth century ; and 

 about 140 pages of the volume are occupied with identi. 

 fications of the places mentioned on the map. The 

 last paper contains an account, also from Chinese 

 sources, of their intercourse with the countries of Central 

 and Western Asia during the fifteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries. In this we are given the description by 

 Chinese writers of over fifty tribes and peoples of the 

 West, including Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch, as 

 far as they were known at that period in China. A most 

 interesting sketch of the early Jesuit missionaries in 

 China is found under the head Italy, in which the struggles 

 of the Jesuits to retain permission to reside at Pekin, the 

 intrigues against them, and their success because of their 

 scientific attainments, arc all described. From this record 

 it appears that in the sixteenth and beginning of the 

 seventeenth century a considerable number of Jesuit 

 fathers resided at Pekin, some of them holding office 

 about the Emperor's Court, and that all died in China 

 after a long residence. Ricci himself, the senior and 

 predecessor of them all, lived in China twenty-eight years, 

 Longobardi fifty-seven years, Emmanuel Diaz forty-nine 

 \ cars, and so on. 



We cannot conscientiously say that the book is one for 

 the general reader: its long notes, Chinese names in italics, 

 and other outward and visible signs of learning will warn 

 off all light-minded persons. Rut to the student of the 

 geography and ethnology of Asia it is an indispensable 

 aid, for it contains almost all that is at the disposal of 

 those unacquainted with the Chinese language, of the 

 observations and experience of Chinese travellers in 

 Central Asia between the thirteenth and sixteenth 

 centuries. We say " almost," because, since Dr. 

 Bretschneider's papers were first published, Dr. Hirth 

 has worked the same mine in his " China and the Roman 

 Orient," published a few years ago, and the discussions 

 which have arisen amongst Chinese scholars in conse- 

 quence of this book have added much to our knowledge 

 of Chinese literature relating to Central and Western 

 Asia. 



THE ORIGIN OF FLORAL STRUCTURES. 

 The Origin of Floral Structures. By the Rev. George 

 Henslow, M.A., F.L.S. (London: Kegan Paul and 

 Co., 1888.) 



pROFESSOR HENSLOW'S book on the origin of 

 •^ floral structures tends to supply a want in botanical 

 literature. It has the merit of being the first popular 

 work which deals extensively with the morphology and 

 development of the flower, and introduces to the English 

 reader the work of Payer, Van Tieghem, and Baillon, 

 besides further popularizing the exquisite researches of 

 Darwin and Miiller concerning the process of fertilization 

 of plants. 



'I'he early chapters, which deal with the anatomy of 

 the flower, though containing little original matter, present 

 a good general view of floral anatomy and structure. The 

 position of the various floral organs upon their axis having 

 been deduced from the similar position and arrangement 

 of leaves upon a vegetative shoot, we shortly come to the 

 first of the author's main points, viz. the possibility of 

 elucidating floral structures by an examination of the 

 relative positions of the vascular bundles, or, as the author 

 prefers to ca'l them, " foliar cords." This idea is by no 

 means new, ;ind we venture to think that the author has 

 not done sufficient justice to extant literature. It is, more- 

 over, a great pity that the new expression cord has been 

 substituted for the well-known vascular bundle, since there 

 appears little or no need for it. In our opinion far too 

 much stress is laid upon the position and distribution of 

 I the vascular bundles, as if the vascular bundles in every 

 case determined the number and position of the various 

 members of the flower and were not rather subservient to 

 them, as certainly appears to be the case in many irregular 

 flowers. In the discussion on the relative positions of the 

 stamens and so-called petals of the Ranunculaceaj, Prof. 

 Henslow has apparently not seen that Prantl has lately- 

 shown the so-called petals to be staminodes. 



The second part of the work deals with the forms of 

 flowers, and all the varied phenomena associated with 

 fertilization. Prof. Henslow lays particular stress upo.n 

 the theory that the shape of the flower as a whole, and 

 also that of the various floral appendages, are definitely 

 associated with, and bear relation to, the particular insects 

 which fertilize them, and the further elaboration of this 

 exceedingly probable hypothesis is the second main point 

 to which he pays especial regard. 



Nectaries— floral and extra-floral— he considers to have 

 been brought into existence, equally with the rest of 

 the floral appendages, through insect agency. Starting 

 with a review of the cases of irritability and response to 

 stimulus which so often occur in plant life, he further 

 points out how frequently pathological growths, such as 

 galls and the like, are formed by the irritation set up by 

 insects, and argues that it is exceedingly probable that in 

 the case of nectaries the perpetual irritation of particular 

 localities by insects in search of the sweet juices which are 

 present in the floral tissues, may have induced the forma- 

 tion of a definite glandular outgrowth, secreting nectar. 

 This hypothesis is certainly in^'enious, and even at the 

 present time is not altogether without support. In the 

 present state of the science it would, however, be prema- 

 ture to accept it without further and strong proof. Prof. 



