go ‘BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [Apa 
anipulations de Botanique, guide pour les travaux d’histologie vegétale, : 
par Paul Girod.): 72 pp., 20 plates. Paris, 1887. : 
This is one of the many books of to-day useful as laboratory guides. . 
The first-part” briefly describes microscopic appliances and methods of : 
using them. Then follow such subjectsas “dicotyledonous stems,” “mono- — 
cotyledonous stems,” “dicotyledonous roots,” etc., all the way to alge.” 
Brief directions with each plant taken up, and a plate on the opposite 
page containing careful drawings of all the sections, clear troubles from 
the path of the student as completely as any laboratory guide we have — 
ever seen. While by no means complete or explicit enough to serve — 
the whole purpose of a laboratory guide in histological botany, it will be 
very useful to the advanced student as a book of reference, and in sug- 
gesting different lines of work. Be 
Die.fossilen Hilzer West Indiens, von J. Felix. Cassel, 1888. : 
This work, which has but recently been received inthis country, 18 _ 
another one of the many valuable contributions of Dr. Felix to the inter — 
esting and difficult study of the internal structure of fossil wood. This 
departeaent of paleobotany, which may be said to have had its origin in 
the year 1880, when Witham published his first observations, has, during 
the past few ae attained a remarkable activity in Europe, and partie 
ularly in Germ 
Several of ex West Indian eek and particularly the island of 
Antigua, have long been noted for their deposits of fossil wood, and many 
specimens had found their way into European museums from this local- 
ity. These specimens, through the kindness of the various curators, were 
placed at the disposal of Dr. Felix, and the results of their study is the 
“ Tracheiden, Strang aha Strahlen-Parenchyma,” while in the former the 
tissaes are numerous and complex, consisting of parenchyma, annular, 
spiral and scalariform vessels, wood cells, bast-fibres, etc. the result 
of his personal examination of over four hundred living species, belong: 
ing to various families, the author concludes that a study of the histolog- 
ical structure alone is not in general sufficient. for the identification 
genera or species, since, as he says, different species of the same genus 
may differ so extraordinarily in their structure that, should one have 
them before him only in a fossil state, they would never be referred 
the same genus. Again, species of different genera may so much f 
