246 REVIEWS. 



If we were writing a popular review of this volume on 

 cross and self-fertilization, w^e should make much of the tenth 

 and eleventh chapters, on the means of fertilization, and es- 

 pecially of cross-fertilization ; on the plants which are sterile, 

 or more than half -sterile, without insect aid ; and, above all, 

 on the habits of insects in relation to the fertilization of 

 flowers. A closing chapter in the volume, on the Forms of 

 Flowers, should also receive attention — that in which cleis- 

 togaraous blossoms are discussed, namely, small and incon- 

 spicuous ones which never open, but are far more fertile than 

 the showy ordinary blossoms of the same plants ; for capital 

 converse testimony, to the effect that all ordinary flowers are 

 in primary reference to cross-fertilization, may be derived 

 from the structure and behavior of these blossoms, in which 

 the contrary intent is unmistakable. When nature means 

 close-fertilization she makes her purpose manifest. Also, we 

 should note that this cleistogamy is sporadic, affects certain 

 families only, and certain members only of families not other- 

 wise particularly related ; so that this peculiarity also seems 

 to be of special and apparently late acquisition. When we 

 gather into one line the several threads of evidence of this 

 sort, to which we have barely alluded, we find that they lead 

 in the same direction with the clews furnished by the study 

 of abortive organs : slender, indeed, each thread may be, but 

 they are manifold, and together they bind us firmly to the 

 doctrine of the derivation of species. 



BENTHAM'S FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 



This volume ^ brings a great undertaking to a happy com- 

 pletion. The first volume was issued in the year 1863, and 

 the work has made steady progress to the end. It is the com- 

 plete phaenogamous Flora of a continent, and the only one ; 



^ Flora Australiensis : a Description of the Plants of the Australian Ter- 

 ritory. By George Bentham, assisted by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. 

 Roxburghiacece to Filices. London, 1878. (American Journal of Science 

 and Arts, 3 ser., xvi. 237.) 



