116 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [May, 
accurate, and in this it excels its predecessor. The physiological part of 
the book is of the least value. It is not entirely reliable, nor up to the 
date at which it was written (1883), if we may judge fairly by the abridg- 
ment. The treatment of assimilation, respiration and fertilization may 
be pointed out as especially weak, though it is difficult to get at the first 
two topics because of the illogical way in which the subject is presented. 
The author devotes a section each to the functions of the various sorts of 
cells, the nutritive organs, and the whole plant. As the functions of the 
whole plant depend entirely on the functions of its organs, and ultimately 
on the functi f the cells, we can not see the advantage of such a method. 
It involves much repetition and dissociation of allied topics. 
Altogether the book is a compact text book, with no special excel- 
lences and some serious faults. It is no better and no worse than the 
common run of school books. There is a need for a small text book suit 
able for high schools and lower college classes, but this does not meet it. 
The book that does must present the essentials of botany clearly and 
attractively, without the encumbrance of trivial details, and with constant 
recognition of the biological significance of structure and function. Who 
? 
will write it 
Sylloge Fungorum Omnium Hucusque Cognitorum. Digessit P. A. Saccardo. 
Volume iv, Hyphomycetes. Padova, 1886. Roy. 8°. pp. 8 
ne can scarcely accord too much praise to the author of the series 
of works of which this is the fourth volume, for his untiring devotion to 
botanical science as shown especially in this monumental undertaking. 
The number of described species of fungi is very large, embracing a large 
proportion of cosmopolitan or widely distributed forms. To bring 
together the works containing the original descriptions is well nigh 
impossible to the ordinary student of fungi; and to have these descrip: — 
tions collated, systematically and critically arranged, and issued in handy 
volumes is a service that the mycologist will appreciate, the more work 
he does. 
The author has not hesitated to take the most difficult classes first, 
those in which assistance is most needed. The present volume includes 
forms of superficial growth, having conidial spores borne free upon aerial 
branches. Although this grouping makes a convenient classification for ee 
the purpose in hand, it brings together orders of very unequal grade, 
which in many instances have but slight re'ationship. The majority of 
the forms are undoubtedly to be set down as fungi imperfecti, whose real 2 
standing can not be fully determined until their life history i8 better 
understood ; some of them, however, have had their sexual condition well” 
worked out, and ina more natural system of classification could find 
more appropriate place elsewhere. et 
_ In a work of this kind one is not surprised to find such slips as the 
insertion of Ramularia Astragali Ell. & Hol. twice, once under Ramularia 
