CURRENT LITERATURE: 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
The Bonn text-book. 
THE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION of the translation of what has come to 
be called familiarly the “Bonn” text-book —Strasburger, Noll, Schenck and 
Schimper’s Lehrbuch der Botanik —has been revised to conform to the many 
changes in the fifth edition of the original work.t No other general text-book 
of botany has yet appeared that seems so nearly to meet the requirements of 
the university student. There is little evidence that the text was not origin- 
ally written in English, and yet the style and characteristics of the original 
have not been lost in translating. The plan of the work, its main divisions 
into general and special’ morphology and physiology are the same as in 
the earlier editions, but the arrangement of the special topics has been made 
much more logical. Chapters have been recast and several entirely rewritten, 
either to incorporate recent investigations or to eliminate errors. In many 
instances original illustrations or reproductions from late monographs have 
replaced unsatisfactory figures. This is particularly true in the chapter which 
treats of cell division. The drawing of a typical vegetative cell(p. 51) which 
takes the place of the well-known figure with its bullet-like centrospheres, is 
much less likely to strain the student’s credulity than its predecessor. There 
are helpful suggestions as to the selection of illustrative material, and of great 
value are the references in the text to the index of important literature on 
the special topics under discussion. The introduction, which is a succinct 
statement of the modern theory of ‘evolution from the botanist’s standpoint, 
has been revised to include DeVries’s mutation theory. 
From the point of view of the instructor, who often to his regret realizes - 
the influence the printed page has upon the average student, one regrets that 
in a book of this sort more care should not be taken in the plants chosen for 
types. Marchantia polymorpha as usual is illustrated by several figures 
giving the important phases of its life history, whereas there are only habit 
sketches of Anthoceros and a Jungermannia form. It is difficult on this 
account to persuade a class that Spirogyra, Mucor, and Marchantia are not 
typical of the algae, fungi, and liverworts respectively. 
At the risk of appearing captious, one is inclined to protest against 
colored pictures which are so bad from every point of view that they are 
quite unworthy of a dignified book. Many modern morphologists will 
* STRASBURGER, E., Noi, F., SCHENCK, H., and ScHIMPER, A. F.W. A text- 
book of botany. Translated from the German by H.C. PorTER; 2d edition revised 
with the 5th German edition by W. H. LANG. 8vo. pp. ix-+671. figs. 686. New 
York: Macmillan & Co. 1903. $5. 
the 
468 [DECEMBER 
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