THURSDAY, JULY. 18, 1912. 
BOTANY AND GARDENING. 
(1) Elementary Plant Biology. By J. E. Peabody 
and A. E. Hunt. Pp. xvii+207. (New York: 
The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan 
and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 4s. 
(2) A Manual of Structural Botany. An Intro- 
ductory Text-book for Students of Science and 
Pharmacy. By Prof. H. H. Rusby. Pp. viii+ 
17-248. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1912.) 
Price 10s. 6d. netnisa 
(3) Mikroskopisches PYektikum fiir systematische 
Botanik (1., Angiospermae). By Prof. M. 
Mobius. Pp. viii+216. (Berlin: Gebriider 
Borntraeger, 1912.) Price 6.80 marks. (Samm- 
lung naturwissenschaftlicher Praktika. Band I.) 
(4) Lebensfragen aus der heimischen Pflanzenwelt. 
Biologische Probleme. By Dr. G. Worgitzky. 
Pp. vilit295+11i. (Leipzig : Quelle and Meyer, 
1911.) Price 7.20 marks. 
(5) Anleitung sur mikroskopischen Untersuchung 
von Pflanzenfasern. By Dr. G. Tobler-Wolff 
and Prof. F. Tobler. Pp. viii+31q1. (Berlin: 
Gebriider Borntraeger, 1912.) Price 3.50 marks. 
(Bibliothek fiir naturwissenschaftliche Praxis, 5.) 
(6) Wild Flowers as They Grow. Photographed 
in Colour Direct from Nature by H. Essenhigh 
Corke. With Descriptive Text by G. Clarke 
Nuttall. Third Series. Pp. vilit1igg. (Lon- 
don»: ‘Cassell and Co., Ltd:, 1912.) © Price 5s. 
net. 
(7) Oxford Gardens. Based upon Daubeny’s 
Popular Guide to the Physick Garden of 
Oxford: with notes on the gardens of the col- 
leges and on the University Park. By R. T. 
Giinther. Pp. xv+280. (Oxford: Parker and 
Son; London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Ltd., 
1912.) Price 6s. net. 
(8) Gardening for the Ignorant. By Mrs. C. W. 
Earle and Ethel Case. Pp. xxiii+232. (Lon- 
don: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 
TS. Nets 
(9) Annuals, Hardy and Half-Hardy. By Charles 
H. Curtis. Pp. xi+116+8 coloured plates. 
(London and Edinburgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 
n.d.) Price 1s. 6d. net. (‘Present-day Gar- 
dening ” series.) 
(10) Irises. By W. Rickatson Dykes. Pp. xiii+ 
110+8 coloured plates. (London and Edin- 
burch alee. and’ Ee i€ajacky n-d.)) - Price 
1s. Od. net. (“ Present-day Gardening ”’ series.) 
(11) How to Make an Orchard in . British 
Columbia. A Handbook for Beginners. By 
J. T. Bealby. Pp. viili+86. (London: A. and 
C. Black, 1912.) Price 1s. 6d. net. 
HESE eleven books, widely though they 
differ as to subject-matter, have sufficient 
common to make them of to the 
NO. 2229, VOL. 89] 
in interest 
497 
NATURE 
botanist, since they are all concerned with plant- 
life as studied in laboratory, countryside, garden, 
farm, and orchard. 
(1) This certainly deserves to rank among the 
best of the many excellent manuals of elementary 
botany published during recent years, for the 
authors have worked out a thoroughly practical 
and interesting course of work for junior students, 
and have logically and consistently kept in view 
throughout their conviction that ‘young students 
are naturally more interested activities or 
functions than they are in mere form or structure ; 
hence, if we wish to work with rather than against 
the grain, we must put function in the foreground 
of our discussion.” The book will be of great 
use to teachers in arranging their courses of work, 
and is equally suitable for classes in day training 
colleges and in secondary schools. 
(2) Prof. Rusby’s manual is the very antithesis 
of the one just noticed. It presents an excellent 
treatment of the general morphology of plants, a 
branch of botany which is often badly neglected. 
It is, however, difficult to agree with the author 
that his book is ‘‘a fairly complete introduction to 
botany,” or to understand why it should be con- 
sidered necessary to omit physiology from the 
botanical curriculum of pharmaceutical students, 
and to present to them only the facts of morpho- 
logy. This work will be useful for reference, but 
as an introduction to botany it is a dry and stodgy 
compilation, containing perhaps the richest collec- 
tion of technical terms ever compressed into two 
hundred pages of any botanical work of recent 
years not avowedly a dictionary. It reminds one 
of Mark Twain’s short poem into which were in- 
sinuated the “musical and gurgly ” names of sixty- 
in 
| six Australian towns; it might be possible, but 
would be difficult, to have got more of them into 
the space. If the terms “anthology,” “antho- 
taxy,”’ and “carpology”’ are to come into general 
use for the study of flowers, inflorescences, and 
| fruits respectively, why not go the whole hog and 
9 66 
bring in such terms as “ phyllology,” “cladology,” 
“rhizology,” “acanthology,” “trichology,’’ &c.— 
ad infinitum? The first sixteen pages are mysteri- 
ously absent—perhaps the lacuna represents a 
mislaid, though hadly needed, glossary of technical 
terms. 
(3) Prof. Mébius breaks new ground in this 
work, which fills a distinct gap among the labora- 
tory manuals hitherto available. The floral 
structure of Angiosperms is too often scamped in 
courses of botanical laboratory work, both ele- 
mentary and advanced. The flowers are hastily 
dissected, the floral formula written, the floral 
diagram drawn, the text-book “characters of the 
copied into the student’s note-book or 
x 
) 
order ’ 
