698 

weed” is to Mr. Balls a name sufficiently explicit 
for all practical purposes. He, moreover, mani- 
fests a reckless use of terms that often proves most 
ambiguous if not misleading. The cotton plant 
belongs, so we are told, to “the sub-order 
Gossypiz (or Hibisczw)”—there is no such sub- 
order. Our author next admits that some con- 
ception of the genealogical tree of the cotton plant 
becomes necessary, and hence he affords us a de- 
scription of what he regards as its original an- 
cestor. He then proceeds to say: “At the present 
day certain wild cottons are found which repre- 
sent the descendants of this primitive ancestor 
not so much altered, such as the wild species 
Gossypium sturtii in Australia.” ‘Not so much 
altered,” and yet the wild species mentioned mani- 
fests a direct negation of practically every one of 
the characteristics of Mr. Balls’s presumed primi- 
tive ancestor of cotton! It is thus hopeless to 
attempt to follow him into speculations of 
“cleavages” that gave rise to his “Asiatic,” | 
“Peruvian,” and ‘“Uplands’’ groups. “The 
grouping,”’ he says, “of all species of cottons of 
the Peruvian type, for example, into groups of 
relations, each group being designated a sub- 
species.” By another enigma a sub-species be- 
comes a hybrid. : 
“The Indian group,” we are told, “does not 
appear to cross with the Upland or Peruvian 
groups.” That statement is given more than 
once, and its value obviously turns on the plants 
accepted as Indian, Upland, and Peruvian. It is, 
however, a fact that a cross has been obtained 
repeatedly, both in India and America, between an 
Indian and an American plant. 
Why did not Mr. Balls furnish his readers with 
a botanical drawing of each of the chief plants in- 
vestigated by him, or at all events with drawings 
of his three great divisions of which he has so 
much to say? His plates iii. and iv. are useless 
for that purpose. 
We have felt it incumbent to exhibit the weak 
side of Mr. Balls’s work, but we turn with 
pleasure to other portions of his book. The 
chapter on the Egyptian plant (as recognised by 
the author) is admirable. It sets forth in a vivid 
manner the different conditions of soil, water, 
and temperature that prevail in that country. He 
thus exemplifies the conditions that it would seem 
must exist before Egyptian stock can be success- 
fully acclimatised in other countries. 
The chapter on ‘Development of the Boll,” 
though full of interesting details, is less practical 
than it may be presumed the author anticipated 
it might prove. Mr. Balls’s method of investigat- 
ing (and estimating) the productiveness of the 
plant, of testing the strength, as also of measuring 
NO. 2391, VOL. 95] 
. 
NATURE 

| duration of life of the plant. 
[AucusT 26, 1915 

the length of the fibre, are certainly clever and 
seem practical. But his chapter on the “Com- 
mercial Lint” confirms the necessity for critical 
study of all the races of the plant. The appendix 
affords a very much-needed key to Mr. Balls’s 
methods of research, and is distinctly useful. 

PLANT-LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA AND 
CALIFORNIA. 
(1) Plants and their Ways in South Africa. 
Prof. B. Stoneman. New edition. 
387. (London: Longmans, 
1915.) Price 55. 
By 
Pp. xii+ 
Green and Co., 
| (2) The Ferns of South Africa, containing De- 
scriptions and Figures of the Ferns and Fern 
Allies of South Africa. By T. R. Sim. Second 
edition. Pp. ix+384. Plates. (Cambridge: 
At the University Press, 1915.) Price 25s. net. 
(3) With the Flowers and Trees in California. 
By C. F. Saunders. Pp. xii+286. (London: 
Grant Richards, Ltd., 1914.) Price 7s. 6d. net. 
(1) HE author of “Plants and their Ways 
in South Africa” has produced a useful 
text-book for the South African student of botany, 
a companion, that is to say, to class and practical 
work under supervision. A study of the seed and 
its germination leads on to the consideration of 
the growth of roots, stems and leaves, and of the 
The form and 
structure of the parts, with a brief section on cells 
and tissues, is followed by a series of chapters 
on function. The chapter on the leaf is rather 
mechanical, and its subject-matter might with 
advantage have been more intimately associated 
with the portions dealing with plant-physiology. 
The study of the flower and fruit is associated 
with pollination and seed-distribution; and there’ 
is a short chapter on the remarkable Kukuma- 
kranka, a small bulbous plant belonging to the 
Amaryllidacee. The remainder of the book, com- 
prising about one-half of the whole, is devoted to 
a sketch of the classification of plants, mainly 
the seed-bearing plants, with concise descriptions 
of those families and their representative genera 
which occur in South Africa. A short concluding 
chapter deals with the botanical regions of South 
Africa. The book is profusely and well illustrated 
with blocks, both original and borrowed from 
various sources. 
(2) The first edition of Mr. Sim’s “Ferns of 
South Africa” appeared in 1892, and was reviewed 
in NaturE of January 26, 1893. In the twenty- 
three years which have elapsed since, the explora- 
tion of the country north of the Orange, Vaal, 
and Umyolosi rivers and the opening up of 
Southern Rhodesia have added greatly to our 
