498 
floral schedule, and the thing is done—the me- 
chanism of pollination, inferred from structural 
characters, may also be noted, if teacher or 
student be usually wide-awake and biologically 
minded. Those who do not consider this method 
sufficient will welcome the present work, which is 
beautifully illustrated, and may be surprised to 
learn how many interesting points in floral struc- 
ture can be made out by taking the necessary 
trouble, according to the clear directions given by 
Prof. Mébius. 
(4) Dr. Worgitzky’s work is largely concerned 
with floral biology, though it goes much farther 
afield than this, and contains an interesting and 
eminently readable series of essays on various 
types and topics suggested by the successive 
seasons of the year. The book is well illustrated, 
some of the ecological photographs being very fine. 
The author never sacrifices accuracy in his suc- 
cessful efforts at clearness and simplicity, but he 
has overlooked many results of recent research 
which might well have been incorporated in his 
pleasantly written essays. The underground 
leaves of the toothwort are by no means useless 
organs; the old fiction about their carnivorous 
function is not repeated here, though it frequently 
recurs in popular books, but Groom’s demonstra- 
tion that they serve for excreting as liquid the 
water which the plant cannot get rid of as vapour 
is a long time in finding its way into text-books | 
and thence into more popular works. 
(5) This excellent and well-illustrated book gives 
a full but concise description of the various vege- 
table fibres used in commerce, with instructions 
for their microscopical examination. Though 
adapted for use in laboratories of the textile de- 
partments of technological institutes, the work is 
of interest to the purely botanical reader from 
its interesting description and figures of the 
sclerenchymatous tissues of plants and_ their 
distribution. 
(6) The illustrations in this handsome book are 
well up to the general level of excellence attained 
in the two preceding volumes of the series, though 
here again, doubtless owing to difficulties in repro- 
duction processes, some of the colours are scarcely 
true to life. Some of the plates are particularly 
fine—for instance, those representing the bramble, 
the cross-leaved heath, the red rattle, and the field | 
rose. The text is not such as to tax unduly the | 
intelligence of the reader, and is inclined to be 
hasty and slovenly; even the familiar quotation 
from Shakespeare about the daffodil in the first 
NATURE, 
sentence of the book is given wrongly—for 
“deck ’’ read ‘‘take.’’ The figures in the text | 
are very poor, being uniformly too small or too 
NO. 2229, VoL. 89| 
[Jury 18, 1912 
diagrammatic, or showing both faults with in- 
accuracy thrown in. 
(7) Mr. Giinther is to be congratulated on 
having produced an excellent guide to the Oxford 
Botanic Garden, despite difficulties, as to sources 
of information, which ought never to have existed 
and would have discouraged a less industrious and 
enthusiastic writer. The book is bright and gos- 
sipy, as a guide to any garden perhaps should be, 
and here and there a trifle dogmatic and some- 
times wrong on botanical topics—also as one 
expects in a guide. Two of the memoirs listed on 
p- 161 are attributed to the wrong author, but 
these and other minor blemishes could easily be 
rectified in a new edition, which is almost certain 
to be called for. 
(8) Every garden-lover, whether ignorant or 
not, will welcome this new book by the authoress 
of ‘‘ Pot-pourri from a Surrey Garden.’’ It 
contains many useful wrinkles, and whether or 
not it can be recommended as the best guide for 
the novice, it is at any rate a useful and delightful 
book and a splendid shillingsworth. Mrs. Earle 
again shows her possession of a style that makes 
it impossible for her to write a dull page, and 
this pleasant chat about gardening has nothing 
more formal in it than the fact that the chapters 
are headed with the names of the twelve months 
in due order. 
(9, 10) The volumes on annuals and irises in 
the “Present Day Gardening” series, edited by 
Mr. R. Hooper Pearson, fully maintain the high 
standard set in previous volumes, and are illus- 
trated each by eight beautiful coloured plates by 
Mr. T. Ernest Weltham. The volume on annuals 
by Mr. Charles H. Curtis will certainly help to 
popularise the culture of these plants, which have 
so much to recommend them, and which are now 
regaining the attention they deserve at the hands 
of present-day gardeners. On Mr. W. Rickatson 
Dykes, as Prof. Bayley Balfour justly remarks in 
his preface, has certainly descended, in the realm 
of iris, the mantle of the late Sir Michael Foster. 
This volume, though small, is remarkably concise 
and compendious, and while it will carry the 
| grower of irises a long way, it will also form an 
admirable introduction to the author’s large book 
on irises which is to be published shortly by the - 
Cambridge University Press. 
(11) Mr. J. T. Bealby is recognised as an 
authority on fruit-farming in British Columbia, 
and in this small book on orchards he gives a clear 
and practical account of the possibilities presented 
by that country for fruit-farmers wishing to 
emigrate there. 
I. CAVERS. 
