346 



NATURE 



[March 4, 1875 



to any useful account the knowledge which is gradually 

 accumulating of the part played by the simplest vegetable 

 organisms in such jAcnomena as fermentation, putrefac- 

 tion, and disease, a study of these and kindred organisms 

 must play a much larger part than it has hidierto done in 

 the botanical instruction given in the country. 



Bearing in mind considerations of this kind, the publi- 

 cation of a new botanical text-book is a matter of con- 

 siderable interest. It must, ho.vever, be at once confessed 

 that the hopes which the admirable typography and attrac- 

 tive exterior of Dr. Brown's book at first sight excited have 

 been most thoroughly dissipated by a somewhat cursory 

 scrutiny of his pages. 



The task which we feel it is absolutely necessary to 

 undertake, of pointing out the signal badness of this book, 

 is one of the most distasteful which anyone can assign to 

 himself. The mere labour which is necessitated by the 

 composition of some six hundred octavo pages of printed 

 matter seems a sort of guarantee that the work will be in 

 some degree genuine. And at first sight the plan which 

 Dr. Brown has adopted- is one which one cannot fail to 

 approve. Instead of attempting, as most Enghsh manuals 

 do, to treat the whole art and mystery of the subject in 

 one volume, giving between the same boards a grammar 

 of technical language, the elements of morphology, of 

 taxonomy, of physiology proper, of distribution both in 

 time and space, he has limited his subject in the present 

 vckune to all that concerns the higher plants alone. But 

 the leaven cleaves to him still, and in each chapter, 

 besides the description of the structure and functions of 

 each several part, we have the old and tedious lists of 

 technical terms, of which even systematic botanists 

 trouble themselves now to use but a fev/. 



It is, however, wiih respect to the detailed execution of 

 the task that Dr. Brown has imposed upon himself that 

 we feel obliged to speak in terms of unquaHfied condem- 

 nation. A book more utierly untrustworthy has piobably 

 never been issued for the use of confiding and unin- 

 structed students ; and as there is a species of singular 

 cruelty in placing in the hands of those who have to 

 learn stores of knowledge which, to say the least, will 

 prove bitterly deceitful when offered as the currency of a 

 modern examination-room, it is to be hoped that some 

 excuse may bo accepted for a degree of indignation which 

 may seem unusual even a review. 



We will simply give a few extracts from Dr. Brown's 

 pages in order that at least our botanical readers may 

 form their own opinion as to how far what is said above 

 admits of justification. 



Here, for example, is a description of the 'red snow 

 plant {Hamatococcus) which will be a hopeless stumbling- 

 iilock at the very outset (p. 14) : — 



" Each of these plants consists of a minute globule, 

 distinct and separate, composed of a thin membrane per- 

 fectly closed in all its parts, colourless, but containing in 

 the interior a red liquid. By-and-by granules appear in 

 this red liquid, which grow and soon tear the envelope, 

 and after a lime give biith to other globular vesicles 

 ' exactly resembling the mother cells." 



Hamatococcus is only a form of Protococcus — ; e.'', 

 instead of gr.;;n. Dr. Brown's account of its life- rsi.uy 

 is behind the age altogether. 



On page i6 we are told of the cell-wall : " In its oii- 



ginal form the membrane is thin, transparent, and colour- 

 less with a pearly lustre." A pearly lustre (not that it 

 exists in this case) accompanies opacity, not transparency. 

 Nor when we have disposed of the cell-wall in this self- 

 conti-adictory fashion, can it be considered an altogether 

 adequate treatment of protoplasm to mention it inci- 

 dentally amongst tlie liquids contained in cells as " a 

 granular viscid substance, composed of protcine and rich 

 in nitrogen, and surrounding the nucleus " (p. 20). It is 

 hardly necessary to observe that the nucleus is not inde- 

 pendent of the protoplasm, but part of it. 



The account of the iiucleus itself is simply apocry- 

 phal : — 



"In the leaves of Orontiunijaponicum it [the nucleus] is 

 suaicient to cause elevated markings on the epidermis, 

 each subjacent cell having a well-marked nucleus. It can 

 be easily seen, especially if a httle iodine is applied. In 

 that case it takes a, marked brown colour, and shows dis- 

 tinctly that it is composed of irregularly round transparent 

 globules, though we do not yet know whether they are 

 really globules or httle cells — solid or empty " (p. 22). 



Further on (p. 23) we learn that " alcohol decolorises 

 chlorophyll by dissolving the resinous matter,'' — the fact 

 being that alcohol dissolves the chlorophyll itself from the 

 protoplasmic granules which it colours. On p. 25 we have 

 the astounding suggestion that chlorophyll is derived from 

 the nucleus " in a manner analogous to that in which 

 starch is." 



On p. 50 we learn that " vessels by their union form 

 vascular bundles o. ten called fibres " — a statement erro- 

 neous from beginning to end. In the account of the 

 strucLuie of the stem of ferns (p. 99) the masses of scleren- 

 chyma are confounded with the fibro-vascular bundles. 

 The account of the stem k,1 LycopodiacecB conveys no real 

 information at all. 



The sweet galingale {Acorns Calamus) is called (p. 103) 

 Calamus arontalicus — Cala?nus being a genus of I'alms. 

 As further instances of slovenUness which could hardly 

 be exceeded : — 



" This point [i.e. the growing point of the root] is called 

 the spongeole or spongelet, from a mistaken laea of its 

 absorbent function. It was at one time commonly taught 

 that this \_i.c. the growing point] was the growing and 

 absorbing point of the rout" (p. 133). 



A Etiphorl'ia is given as an example of CactacecB 

 (p. 146). The , whole, plant of Lcmna is alluded to as 

 representing a leaf (p. 147). 



" In Broussonetia papyri/era, out of the pith of which 

 paper is made, and out of the liber of which the Poly- 

 nesians weave their cloth, Duchartte notices the extreme 

 diversity of the leaves" (p. 173). These irrelevant state- 

 ments would be accurate were not the paper made from 

 the bark and not the pith, and were not Tappa cloth a 

 "felt" made by beating, and not a woven material at all. 



Even the tedious lists of technical terms are not more 

 accurate. The surface of the leaf, we are told (p. 205), 

 may be " pl.i.n," to -iAxxch. planwii is given as the equiva- 

 lent.; lower down vclvetiiium is given as the equivfalent 

 of viilose. 



It is sad to contemplate the fate of an unhappy examinee 

 who should venture, trusting in Dr. Brown, to say it has 

 been shown (p. 409; "tha: in many plants the pollen- 

 tubes found at the micropjle at the time of impregnation 



