BOOK REVIEWS 263 



great variety of conditions. Professor Bose finds that plant cells 

 are affected similarly to animal cells by temperature, light, chemi- 

 cal reagents including alcohol, fatigue, shock, and other conditions. 

 His thesis is that ' ' there is hardly any phenomenon of irritability 

 observed in the animal which is not found in the plant" and that 

 there is, therefore, a fundamental unity in plant and animal 

 responses to stimulus. 



Adventures Among Wild Flowers, by John Trevena. Longmans, 

 Green & Co., New York. Edward Arnold, London. Pp. 

 304; sixteen inset photogravures. $2.00. 

 With the affection and color-sense of a Richard Jefferies and 

 something of the humor of Charles Dudley Warner in his Summer 

 in a Garden, John Trevena has recorded his observations of, and 

 reflections upon, some of the interesting wild flowers and some of 

 the equally interesting human examples that he has found in his 

 rambles in England and Alpine Europe. He does not draw very 

 fine distinctions between flowering specimens and human ones, so 

 the reader must be on his guard to know when the she's and who's 

 refer to gentianas and geraniums and when to Rosamonds and 

 Romeos. At the outset, Trevena disavows the least desire to 

 vivisect "the vile body" of a plant under suspicion of photosyn- 

 thesis and osmotic pressure. He is far more interested in the his- 

 tory and moral character of wild flowers than in the adoration of 

 their stamens, especially of the "glorious free plants of rocks and 

 hills." These, to him, possess real character and sometimes 

 possibly consciousness. On frosty nights he wonders whether they 

 are suffering and it troubles him to see one of them dying. These 

 phrases, for example, reflect his feelings towards one Alpine blos- 

 som — Eritrichium nanum of the botanist — ^"the votaress of the 

 snows . . . with flowers of the morning sky and foliage of the 

 evening cloud . . . God's blue flower. Search for her by all 

 means, and good luck be with you, be not content until you have 

 found her, but let it be your pleasure ever afterwards to remember 

 that you never so much as injured a hair upon one of her woolly 

 leaves." Our author is willing to prove that wild flower quest is 

 perfect human sport; but to be perfect, he is careful to show that 

 the quest must be pursued in the spirit of the benevolent emigra- 



