216 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 25, 



Ixfbirlud. 



TWO ELEMKNTAKY BOTANY BOOKS.* 



'^pilERE is notliing lianlor on earth than to find fault, 

 I and espcoiall)- to find fault with established authority. 

 If possible, one would like to praise everybody, and above 

 all to praise earnest men of science, whose title to speak 

 about their own special subject is quite undoubted. But 

 we cannot find it in our liearts not to utter a word of pro- 

 test against Professor Bentley's little manual, which he 

 has prepared " with the intention of supplying young boys 

 and girls with a simple introduction to the study of plants." 

 It is meant to be " quite intelligible to any boy or girl 

 beyond the age of twelve years, who has even received but 

 a moderately good education." And here is some of the 

 fare provided for the phenomenal boys and girls beyond 

 the age of twelve years : — 



Thug, if the blade is pinnatelv-voined the dirisiona are corre- 

 spondingly placed, nnd iho Icof is pinnatijid, pinnatiparttte, or 

 pinnatittelni, aicording to their depth; or when palmatcly- 

 veincd nnd divided accor<linf;I_v the leaf is pnlmalifid, palmalipar- 

 Mr, or palinatis-eleJ, in like manner. When the divisions are 

 themselves divided in u similar manner to the blade itself the leaf is 

 lipinnalind, Ac, the application of which terms will be readily 

 understood without further explanation. 



Elsewhere, from a single page of this little primer, we 

 extract the following choice expressions : — "Coiled up in a 

 circinate mannfr," "young (lowers in a scorpioid cyme," 

 "sori," " inclusiuni," "sporangia," "a ring or annuhis," 

 " antheridium," " .spirally-waved filament termed a sper- 

 matozoid," and so forth ; while the next page takes us 

 into all the dry details of archegonia, embryo sacs, germ 

 cells, and the rest of it, which, as Mr. Silas Wegg justly 

 remarked, had much better be discussed " in the absence 

 of Mrs. Boffin." Organography, morphology, alternation of 

 generation — this is what tlie boys and girls above the age 

 of twelve years have to study. And yet they have 

 received but a moderately good education ! Why, 

 Alacaulay's famous schoolboy was but an ignoramus by 

 the side of these modern prodigies ! 



The anonymous author of " Plant Life," seems almost 

 equally unable to think himself away from the technicalities 

 wherein he was instructed, and to think himself into the 

 position of the hapless children for whose instruction he 

 is supposed to write. It is true, he has been heavily 

 weighted by the " requirements of the Education Depart- 

 ment, as published in the Revised Code " : and certainly 

 the collective wisdom which prescribes an acquaintance 

 with cells and vessels or the phenomena of germination 

 deserves to be treated with deferential caution ; but even 

 that awful and impersonal entity, the Revised Code itself, 

 could hardly desire that the babes and sucklings of the 

 Board HchooU should be crammed with such solid pudding 

 as thia : — 



Within is a cellular body, each cell of which contains a curled- 

 op i-'^'t: i./ TIk'kc antherozoids, when sot free, find their way 

 ]'•■' ' :ind fertilise it, the reiinit being that (,Towtli 



i» ' 'H of the ar-hfjonium ciiWcH the nuelons. It 



«J' ■• inyia, and in so doing tears away the upfier 



p""" ■•"» which remains attached to it as the ca'ypfra. 



PVim (:,•-.• ii).'un<» it will bo seen that a variety of reproduction 

 obtains among the cryptogamic plants. 



All this is very true and very beautiful, no doubt ; but 

 aa we read it we wonder, somehow, whether it would not 

 l»e possible to write a lx>tany book for children in a simpler. 



• " Manuals of Elementary Science," Botany, by Professor 

 B<T)tlcy (H P.C.K.). " Easy I-essons in liotany," by the author of 

 " Plant Life." (L-jndon : T. Pisher Unwin.) 



pleasanter, and more natural way. Might not one begin 

 with the pretty pink flower itself, the thing that little 

 children know and love, instead of beginning with " the 

 root or descending axis," and proceeding duly to the andras- 

 cium and the gyniviiuni, and all the other horrid structural 

 details? iMight not one explain first the uso and meaning 

 of llower and fruit, and then work back to leaf, and stem, 

 and root, and cells, and vessels'! Might not one do all 

 this, with the accompaniment of some simple diagrams, and 

 yet never once employ such charming words as lyrete, run- 

 cinate, palmate, digitate, and pedate ? liut, then, a botany 

 book written upon those lines would perhaps bo actually 

 interesting, and what would the Revised Code say to thatl 

 No, collective wisdom is all for the best, no doubt ; and the 

 poor children must go on with these weak and beggarly 

 elements to the very last. Yet, we venture to predict that 

 all the good they will ever get from them will bo a pro- 

 found and deeply-rooted hatred of systematic botany. 



" The Botanical Ati,as ; a Guide to the Practical 

 Study of Plants." By D. McAlpine, F.C.S. (Edinburgh : 

 W. it A. K. Johnston, 1882. Part 1.) This is a capital 

 work of its sort, well designed and well printed, with most 

 of its information brought thoroughly up to date. It 

 consists of dissections and magnified views of illustrative 

 plants, which will show practical students wliat they ought 

 to see for themselves in the specimens they examine. Not 

 only is the structure of each species well exhibited, but 

 attention is called in passing to functional uses, while such 

 points as the devices for favouring or ensuring cross- 

 fertilisation in the sago and the wallHowors are admirably 

 brought out in the drawings and enforced in the letter- 

 press. Here and there we notice a little vagueness of 

 detail in the essential organs of the flowers represented, 

 and the descriptive literary mattor requires more careful 

 editing ; but we hope to see these slight defects remedied 

 in forthcoming parts, and we can cordially recommend tho 

 work to all amateurs or beginners who wish for a guide in 

 the diflicult matter of plant dissection. It is prettily 

 coloured, too, which gives it the first introduction of a 

 pleasing appearance, and it is comniendably free from any 

 unnecessary technicality of language. 



Mns. R. C. Baknaui), of Bartlow, Leckhampton-hill, 

 Cheltenham, sends us some excelUint lithographed illustra- 

 tions to " Houston's Practical Botany," which are to be 

 had " only by application to the arti.st." They are well 

 and faithfully drawn from nature, and tho structural 

 details have been carefully brought out. Above all, Mrs. 

 Barnard has succeeded in catching what botanists call the 

 "habit" of the difFerent plants — that is to say, their dis- 

 tinctive individual appearance. There is nothing so diflicult 

 to do as this, for draughtsmen will often give every tech- 

 nical detail with perfect correctness, and yet tho whole will 

 be so unlike the real plant that nobody will recognise it for 

 the same thing. It is like expression in portrait-jiainting — 

 depetident upon such petty turns or twists of feature that 

 only a true artist can ever catch it For her present 

 purpose, Mrs. Barnard may be considered as such. 



AccoRDINO to Dr. Frankland's report upon llio (|iialily of tho 

 waters furnished to tho metropolis during .Inly, llio 'ihaTncs water 

 distributed by the five companies drawing their Hiipply from thiit 

 Honrce was of better average quality than in any previnnH month of 

 the year, although all the samples, except thai dniwn from the 

 mains of tho Lambeth company, woro sliglitly turbid from in- 

 cITicient filtration. Tho I.ica water, distributed iiy tho Now Kivor 

 nnd East London Companies, also showed considerable imjuovoinent 

 in quality. 



