NARORE 
73 
THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1885 
PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION IN BOTANY 
A Course of Practical Instruction in Botany. By F. O. 
Bower, M.A., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at the Normal 
School of Science, South Kensington, and Sidney H. 
Vines, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S., Fellow and Lecturer of 
Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Reader in Botany in 
the University ; with a Preface by W. T. Thiselton 
Dyer, M.A., C.M.G., F.R.S., F.L.S., Assistant Director 
of the Royal Gardens, Kew. Part I. Phanerogamze— 
Pteridophyta. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1885.) 
ie is with more than ordinary satisfaction that we 
welcome this volume. Apart altogether from con- 
sideration of its intrinsic excellency, its appearance is 
gratifying as a first product of the younger school of 
botanists in this country—a school which for some years 
past has been doing good work in oral teaching, though 
up till now it has not contributed to teaching literature— 
and it is time that its methods were put in a more 
permanent form and made more generally accessible. 
The inconsistencies and inaccuracies characterising, with 
few exceptions, our endemic botanical text-books and our 
dependence for reasonably safe handbooks with informa- 
tion up to date upon translated works, mostly of German 
authors, are a reproach for which every botanist would 
gladly see the cause removed. At last we have a prospect 
of this, and the volume now before us is an instalment of 
a work which will in great part do so. The names of 
Thiselton Dyer, Bower, and Vines on the title-page are 
a guarantee of its thoroughness and accuracy, and the 
book certainly bears out their reputation. 
The book took origin, as Mr. Thiselton Dyer informs 
us in the preface, in the work initiated by him at South 
_ Kensington in 1873. It is no small merit to have started 
at that time a system of instruction which embraced the 
examination by every student of the leading morpho- 
logical facts of every important type in the vegetable 
kingdom. And this programme, which Mr. Thiselton 
Dyer set himself and successfully carried out, has not 
only eventuated in what, with him, we hope will be per- 
manent—the institution, in what is now the Normal 
School of Science, at South Kensington, of a lectureship 
on botany, but also, in what concerns us here—this 
volume. 
*T had always,” says Mr. Thiselton Dyer, “hoped to 
put together the results of the experience in teaching 
methods acquired at South Kensington in the form of a 
handbook, which should save teachers who wished to 
follow our example from much of the trouble and diffi- 
culty which I, and those who at different times have 
taught in this way, have had to face. But, in the mean- 
_ while, I had been drawn off to administrative duties which 
left a steadily decreasing leisure for purely scientific work. 
Fortunately, my friend Mr. Bower was willing—and with 
far greater competence—to take up the task which I was 
unable to perform, and to him are entirely due the labora- 
tory instructions for studying the different types selected. 
Dr. Vines has very kindly supplied the chapters on 
methods and on the morphology of the cell. But besides 
VOL. XXx11.—No. 813 
this he has at every step given the assistance of his own 
extensive experience in practical teaching.” With this 
book before us we can understand the motive of success 
of the South Kensington course, for it is the most 
thorough introduction to the practical study of plant 
morphology which has yet appeared ; the only book to 
be mentioned along with it is the recently published 
“Practicum” of Strasburger—(of which of course the 
inevitable translation is promised)—and that is laid down 
on somewhat different lines. 
In the first chapter Dr. Vines gives an excellent account 
of methods and reagents, delightful in the clearness and 
conciseness of its language and bearing throughout evi- 
dence of the hand of one who is no mere compiler of 
instruction but who has himself tested and had experience 
of all that is explained. The manner of setting to work, 
of making preparation, of making cultures, of preparing 
reagents, is all set forth in such a way that any intelligent 
tyro may readily equip himself and do good work. And 
we must congratulate Dr. Vines on the wise selection of 
methods and reagents he has made for notice, and on 
their arrangement. The multiplicity of new methods— 
many with but questionable advantage to recommend 
them—and their technicalities even in connection with 
botanical work is, at the present time, somewhat appall- 
ing and it is satisfactory to have these sifted by so com- 
petent an authority. 
Dr. Vines’s second chapter, on the Structure and Pro- 
perties of the Cell, is a very prominent and commendable 
feature in the book, and will prove an extremely valuable 
one to all practical students—the micro-chemical portion 
of it especially, which gives in summarised and terse 
form the fundamental reactions exhibited by the various 
elements in the plant body, which are the basis of all 
further laboratory work. The student finds here at once 
a guide for testing the dictums of the earlier chapter as 
well as a graphic code for reference in his future studies. 
A synoptical arrangement such as this, and so happily 
worked out, has not been attempted in any previous book. 
Mr. Bower’s more especial work, the morphology of the 
various types dealt with, is no less excellent. The ex- 
amples selected for illustration appear to us particularly 
well chosen, being readily obtainable in any locality, and 
their characteristics, macroscopic and microscopic, are 
explained with precision and in great detail. We shall 
not dwell at any length upon illustration of the admirable 
character of this part of the book, but in evidence of its 
completeness will refer to the section on the vegetative 
organs of Dicotyledons. Sw/flower is selected as the 
chief type for examination, and we have first of all a brief 
description of the embryo and germination; then its 
stem in the mature and young condition are gone over, 
macroscopically and microscopically; but as it shows 
only the herbaceous type, the arboreous type as seen in 
Elm is explained, and further, the aquatic type, as in 
Mare’s-tail. Sections are next added on the stem of 
Cucumber and Lime-tree with a view to special illustra- 
tion of the sieve-tube elements, and upon Dazdelion and 
Spurge for laticiferous elements. In like manner the 
leaf is treated of, to that of Swflower, which is the 
chief type, descriptions of Cherry-laurel and Stone-crop 
being appended. Again, in the case of the root, Scar/et- 
runner as well as Sunflower is described. Besides these 
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