August 28, 19 13] 



NATURE 



^57 



treatment is calculated to give the subject of plant 

 geography much educational value in a school 

 ■ curriculum. Many of the illustrations are ex- 

 tremely poor. However, we may perhaps hope 

 for a more adequate and better illustrated treat- 

 ment of the subject in the more advanced book 

 promised in the preface. 



(.;) Prof. Ganong has already laid students and 

 teachers of botany under a debt of gratitude for 

 his valuable and helpful manuals, and in the 

 present work he has produced an attractive and 

 stimulating volume which every botanical teacher 

 would do well to obtain. It presents the clearest 

 and most complete picture of plant life that has 

 appeared for many years, and should do much 

 to popularise the study of plants among that- 

 increasing class of readers whose needs are met 

 neither by the standard text-books intended pri- 

 marily for college students, nor by the unfortu- 

 nately too common type of "popular " botany book 

 the appeal of which is made by means of coloured 

 plates with incidental letterpress, concerning the 

 character of which the less said the better. 

 Prof. Ganong combines in a particularly happy 

 manner scientific accuracy, clearness of exposi- 

 tion, and literary style, such as make this book 

 delightful reading, whether he is dealing with the 

 deeper problems of physiology or with the most 

 familiar aspects of plant life. The work i> 

 marked throughout by freshness and originality 

 of treatment, and the diagrams and generalised 

 drawings which he gives so freely will be of the 

 greatest value to teachers of botany, apart from 

 their primary object of enabling the "general 

 reader" to understand the descriptions which they 

 illustrate. 



(3) Mr. Bastin has produced a thoroughly 

 attractive and interesting work, well designed to 

 serve as a first introduction to the study of the 

 flowerless plants, with the aid of the more detailed 

 books on the various groups. Unlike some other 

 writers of popular nature-study books, the author 

 aims solely at arousing the reader's interest by 

 means of excellent photographic illustrations and 

 simple but, so far as they go, accurate descrip- 

 tions, and takes care to point out that the 

 reader of books of this scope will find in the text- 

 books of the specialist "the best possible friends, 

 incomplete in themselves, but priceless as guides 

 to those things which alone can be truly studied 

 in the open air." Nothing could be more different 

 from the explicit or implicit cksims of various other 

 "popular" botanical writers to have presented a 

 full and sufficient treatment of the subject in their 

 books. Mr. Bastin 's work is admirably calcu- 

 lated to stimulate interest in the hitherto some- 

 what neglected groups — from the nature-study 

 XO. 228;, VOL. 91] 



point of view — with which he deals, and the reader 

 who wishes to proceed to a more detailed study 

 will, at any rate, have nothing to unlearn, though 

 one rather wishes that the author had included 

 in his excellent work a list of suitable books for 

 the further study to which this forms such an 

 admirable introduction. 



(4I Mr. Meier's book, though written primarily 

 lor American use, contains scarcely anything that 

 will not be found of interest and value to teachers 

 of school-gardening in this country, as well as to 

 amateur gardeners in general, and this despite 

 the fact that the author does not deal with gener- 

 alities or with experiments. He has succeeded 

 admirably in his attempt to give definite instruc- 

 tions for the arrangement, planting, and care uf 

 a fairly wide range of plants commonly grown in 

 the house and garden, the difficulties met in culti- 

 vating each individual plant being considered one 

 at a time, and definite directions given for over- 

 coming them. 



(5) The second half of Mr. Clute's book covers 

 much the same ground as the work just noticed, 

 but its scope is somewhat wider, and the first 

 portion constitutes an excellent general introduc- 

 tion to botany. Many of the illustrations of 

 familiar objects have a fresh appearance, owing 

 to the author's very sparing use of figures copied 

 from other works. Nothing could be more 

 suitable as a general introduction to botany and 

 horticulture than the lessons on soil with which 

 the book opens, though this portion might perhaps 

 with advantage have been expanded. The teacher 

 will find much that is useful in the work, despite 

 the fact that American examples and illustrations 

 are largely used. 



(6) The late Prof. Strasburger's well-known 

 " Botanische Praktikum " needs no special re- 

 commendation to teachers and students of botany, 

 to whom it is well-nigh indispensable, no other 

 single book covering so much ground. In suc- 

 cessive editions the book has grown in size until 

 in the present one, the fifth, it has become per- 

 haps unduly large for convenience in laboratory 

 use. 



The present edition differs from its predecessors 

 mainly in the addition of a considerable amount of 

 new letterpress and illustrations dealing with 

 micro-technique, the general plan of the work 

 remaining unaltered. It is an open question 

 whether there is not rather too much general 

 descriptive matter that would be more in place 

 in a book intended for the study instead of the 

 laboratory ; but still, the tacking-on of more or 

 less theoretical passages to the directions for 

 practical work has decided advantages. The 

 chief drawback to the plan is that it is somewhat 



