CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
Some elementary textbooks 
The series of well-known and very successful elementary texts of BERGEN 
hay been increased by a new one in collaboration with Davis.t_ Every successful 
teacher of botany recognizes that there are possible different lines of approach 
to the subject. Hence it is quite usual for texthooks to be so arranged as to 
permit selection and rejection to fit the desires of various teachers. However, 
when two plans of organization are carried out practically throughout the whole 
plant kingdom, really two courses in botany are provided for. Such is the arrange- 
ment of the book under consideration, which consists essentially of two books 
bound together. 
Part I, on “The structure and physiology of seed plants,’ and Part UI, on 
“Ecology and economic botany,”’ comprising 299 pages of the book, are by Pro- 
fessor BreRGEN. They have a distinctive method of presentation, and include 
most of the topics found in the widely used and successful Foundations oj botany 
which the present hook is designed to supplant. Part II (256 pages), on “The 
morphology, evolution, and classification of plants,” is by Dr. Davis. Parts i 
and III are topical in nature, while Part II is arranged according to the increas- 
ing complexity of the plant kingdom. The authors suggest that “‘the whole will 
furnish material for a full year’s work,” usually omitting portions, and ‘“‘that a 
half-year course can be readily arranged by selections from the more general 
sections of the book.” 
The work begins with three chapters on the seed and seedling, followed by 
two upon roots, three upon stems, others upon form and arrangement of buds and 
leaves and upon the minute structure and the function of leaves. The remaining 
chapters of Part I deal with the flower and fruit. In Part III, in addition to the 
rewritten chapters on topics usually found under the caption of ecology, there 
is a chapter on “Plant breeding” and one on ‘Some useful plants and plant 
products.” These are the best statements of these topics that have appeared in 
elementary texts of botany, and constitute a valuable addition to the work as 
sae outlined in Foundations of botany. 
rt II is a detailed statement of existing knowledge of the evolution of 
Pree insofar as that knowledge is based upon morphology and cytology. The 
second paragraph in this part reads as follows: 
One department of morphology (comparative morphology) deals with the various 
forms or disguises which the same sort of organ may take in different kinds of plants, 
t BERGEN, JosEPH Y., and Davis, BRADLEY M., Principles of botany. pp- ix+ 
555- Boston: Ginn and Company. 1906. 
64 
= 2 ll 
