1895. ] Current Literature. 35 
A “ practical flora.’’* 
What is it? Barring the need of a distinctive name and one that 
would aid in selling the book any one would be puzzled, we imag- 
ine, to say why it should bear such a title. True, Mr. Willis, the com- 
piler (for he is nothing else), says in the preface that his design is “to 
show the practical aspects of the vegetable world,” and asserts that 
“there has been a long-felt want for a work of such practical charac- 
ter, and this book has been prepared to meet the demand.” But his 
book is neither a fora nor practical, so far as we can judge. Itisa 
compilation of descriptions of flowering plants selected from all coun- 
tries under the sun, including a large number of native plants. On 
what principle the “careful selection” is based does not appear except 
in the preface. The exotics described are generally plants of eco- 
homic importance, but many other species of egua/ economic import- 
ance are not described. | 
Indeed the writer seems to have selected his plants to fit his pages. 
At the beginning, when the pages were all before him, we find among 
the Ranuculacee forty-three species described, including such unim- 
portant ones as Ranunculus rhomboideus and Anemone parviflora; of 
Viola eighteen species, including V. Selkirkii; while as space began to 
diminish, the Composite are cut off with six and Liliacez with nine! 
How this book could be “the outgrowth of a successful class-room 
experience” we cannot understand. Does Mr. Willis have his stu- 
dents “analyze” Cinchona calisaya, or Diospyros ebeneum, or Areca 
catechu, or any of the multitude of other plants that they never saw, 
and never will see, in this country? We could understand an ency- 
clopedia of economic plants; but this book, with its mixture of native 
and exotic, valuable and useless plants, with its “keys” and descrip- 
tions, its scrappy accounts of history and use, is quite beyond our un- 
derstanding. 
We cannot afford space for quotation, except of a few definitions 
which introduce the book, that our readers may be enrolled among 
the people we have smiled with.” 
“Structural Botany has for its object the investigation of the structure, mode 
of growth, and functions of the cells and vessels that make up the plant. 
Organography is a division of this department that has special reference to the 
organs. Morphology is properly a division of Structural Botany and notes the 
Changes that take place in the cells and tissues of plants. Physiological Botany | 
takee into consideration the vital action in the reception, preparation, and dis- 
Position of the nourishment necessary to keep up the growth of the plant and to 
* Wittis, O. R.: A practical flora for schools and colleges. 8vo. pp. xvi + 
New York: American Book Co. 1894. 
