CURRENT LITERATURE. 
Manual of Vegetable Physiology. 
A guide to laboratory exercises in vegetable physiology, the first 
published for the use of English speaking students, has just been 
issued from the press of Morris & Wilson of Minneapolis, Minn.* 
This valuable addition to the aids for teaching physiological botany 
is the outcome of the needs of the flourishing department of physiol- 
ogy in the University of Minnesota. The work is a translation of 
Oels’ Phlanzenphysiologische Versuche, published less than a year ago, 
and intended for the use of middle class schools. ‘The translation 
has been prepared and printed primarily for the convenience of stu- 
dents in the University of Minnesota, but it has been put into such 
good shape, and the original text is so admirable that it will prove 
specially valuable wherever elementary physiology is taught. 
The translator. has taken great liberties with the Roman-paged pre- 
lude to the text proper, but the body of the work has been rendered 
into English with fidelity, the only change of moment being the sub- 
stitution of the word “photosynthesis” for that of “ assimilation.” 
This change follows from a suggestion by Dr. Barnes, made a year ago 
before the American Association at Madison, who clearly pointed out 
the need of a distinctive term for the synthetical process in plants, 
brought about by protoplasm in the presence of chlorophyll and light. 
He proposed the word “photosyntax,” which met with favor. In 
the discussion Professor MacMillan suggested the word “ photosyn- 
thesis,” as etymologically more satisfactory and accurate, a claim 
which Dr. Barnes showed could not be maintained. The suggestion 
of Dr. Barnes not only received tacit acceptance by the botanists of 
the association, but was practically approved by the Madison Congress 
in the course of a discussion upon this point. In the interest of har- 
mony, therefore, even if courtesy be ignored, the word substituted for 
assimilation, if any were to be inserted, should have been “ photosyn- 
x and not “ photosynthesis.” 
he text is made up of eighty-eight paragraphs of general state- 
ments of fact, introducing the experiments, one hundred and twenty- 
two in number. The illustrations show clearly how the work is to be 
PP erenme a 
*Okts, Waxter: Experimental plant physiology; translated and edited by 
»*. MacDougal. pp. x + 86. figs. 77. 8vo. Minneapolis: Morris & Wilson. 
1894. $1.10, : . 
