554 



NATURE 



[April i6, 1908 



we have e\-en been obliged to admit that Muskarin 

 is obtained from Amaniia muscaria.^ But now Dr. 

 Zcllner has a furtlier shocl< for us, and we find sucli 

 words as Kahium, Zitronensdiire, Glyzerin, Azetyl, &c., 

 scattered throughout his pages. Thus (p. 97) Mykose 

 forms an " Oktoazetylverhindung," which is no doubt 

 chemicall}' true, but, stated in this form, it seems to 

 jar upon the orthographic nerve of the average English 

 reader. All this is, of course, purely personal, perhaps 

 old-fashioned or narrowly insular, and has nothing 

 to do with the scientific merits of the work, which, as 

 has already been said, are of a very high order, and 

 every worker in the domain of plant chemistry will 

 be grateful to the author for having produced it. 



R. MELDOL.i. 



BOTA^^ICAL INSTRUCTION. 



Plant Biology. A Text-book of Elementary Botany 

 arr.anged for Modern Methods of Teaching. Bv 

 Dr. F. Cavers. Pp. xvi + 460. (Cambridge : Uni- 

 versity Tutorial Press, 1907.) Price 35. 6d. 



Laboratory and Field Manual of Botany. By J. Y. 

 Bergen and B. M. Davis. Pp. viii + 257. (Boston 

 and London : Ginn and Co., n.d.) Price 45. 6rf. 



Studies in Plant Life. By J. Adams. Pp. v+179. 

 (Dublin and Belfast: Fallon and Co., Ltd., n.d.) 



■Elementary Botany. By M. A. Liversidge. Pp. 128. 

 (London : Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1907.) Price 

 15. 6d. net. 



Introduction to Elementary Botany. By Charlotte L. 

 Laurie. Pp. viii + S4. (London: Allman and Son, 

 Ltd., n.d.) Price k?. net. 



Our Woodlands, Heaths and Hedges. By W. S. 

 Coleman. Pp. viii+141; with 8 plates. New 

 edition, entirely reset. (London : George Routledge 

 and Sons, Ltd., 1907.) Price li. 



THE advocates of an exclusively experimental 

 course of study in the natural sciences are con- 

 fronted with the difficulty of time limitations, so that 

 in practice it becomes necessary to strike a balance 

 between lecture and practical work. Dr. Cavers has 

 indicated in " Plant Biology " the lines of work 

 that he has found successful with training-college 

 students, in which the training is almost entirely 

 derived from observation and experiment. The 

 foundation of the course consists of experiments — of 

 which about three hundred and fifty are outlined — 

 in connection with the nature and function of parts 

 of the flowering plant ; so far as possible the bean 

 plant is used as the type. Flower and soil, biology 

 and ecology provide a subsidiary section. The course 

 differs mainly from ordinary practice in excluding 

 the examination of selected types from the main 

 groups and in the general omission of flowerless 

 plants. With regard to the composition of the 

 subject-matter, the author deserves great commend- 

 ation ; the arrangement is well planned, the ex- 

 periments are generally simple and practicable, and 

 the information is contrived to make the student 



J The familiar Chei:ihchcs Cmtral-Blatt\\3s now become nZcntral-B/dti. 

 NO. 2007, VOL. 77] 



think. A scries of questions at the end of each 

 chapter can be used either by the student or his 

 instructor to gauge the progress that is being made. 

 The appendices also contain much useful matter ; 

 hints on practical work refer to special opportunities 

 afforded month by month ; a summary of Engler's 

 system of classific.ition is provided, and a glossary 

 of botanical terms. 



The manual prepared by Mr. Bergen and Dr. Davis 

 is a practical handbook primarily arranged in accord- 

 ance with their text-book "Principles of Botany." 

 The first part relates to the structure and physiology 

 of seed plants. The plan adopted of outlining the 

 instructions without detailed information that is left 

 for the student himself to discover is good, but the 

 authors have not been very happy in distinguishing 

 between more and less important facts or in systeni- 

 atising the subject-matter. As an instance, it may 

 be cited that the description of a t\-pical young 

 dicotyledonous stem is not particularly noted, while 

 the structure of the climbing dicotyledonous stem 

 receives undue prominence. The second part, indi- 

 cating type studies of flowering and ilowerless 

 plants, is more felicitous. Spirogyra forms a suit- 

 able introduction for studying the cell in detail. 

 Pleurococcus, Vaucheria, L'lothrix, and Qldogonium 

 are chosen as the types of green algee, while refer- 

 ence is also made to Ulva, Cladophora, and 

 Coleochaetc. Microsphara, the lilac-mildew, is 

 selected as the type of an Ascomycete, and the intro- 

 duction of Marsilia is quite a desirable innovation. 

 Ecology is dealt with in the third section under the 

 headings of flower pollination, seed dissemination, 

 types of vegetation, &c. The remainder of the book 

 is devoted to accessory but valuable hints on re- 

 agents, methods of fixing and staining, cultures of 

 the lower plants, and apparatus. Considered as a 

 whole, the authors have provided a useful manual 

 that presents a large amount of practical information 

 in a limited amount of space. 



The small book written by Mr. Adams is of an 

 extremely superficial nature. Owing to generous 

 spacing and a large number of illustrations, the text 

 is less than would be expected. In the circumstances, 

 it would have been advisable to give more space to the 

 essentials of plant structure as exemplified in the 

 flowering plant and to have omitted the cursory de- 

 scriptions of flowerless plants and plant habitats. The 

 author has taken pains to introduce facts of prac- 

 tical importance to the agriculturist, such as fer- 

 tilisers, dwarf shoots, &-c., but there is a lack of 

 clearness and accuracy in some of the elementary 

 definitions. 



The limits of Miss Liversidge 's book are set by 

 the intention of covering the syllabus of work for the 

 Oxford and Cambridge junior local examinations. 

 It is evident that it has also been written rather with 

 the view of giving facts for examination purposes 

 than of training the young mind. There are four 

 parts, assigned to external morphology, anatomy, 

 physiology, and systematic botany. The design of 

 the physiological part is good, but the experimental 



