1896 ] CURRENT LITERATURE 177 
spondingly antiquated terminology maintained in the work, ¢. g., as to the 
process of photosyntax in the chlorophyll grain, which is called assimilation, 
although genuine assimilation is also mentioned. Thus we get this highly 
ambiguous sentence: ‘The cotyledons begin the function of assimilation 
as soon as the reserve food is assimilated.” Another instance of a similar 
nature is in regard to reproduction. Although the author states that “the 
entire phanerogamic plant with its flowers represents the asexual generation,” 
he constantly speaks of male and female flowers, and of the gyneecium and 
andreecium as male and female organs. 5 
There are good things in the book, and we are grateful to the translator 
for making available for class use a work in which the theories of Schwendener, 
Nageli, Haberlandt and their followers are prominent; but it will not do to 
accept it unthinkingly, even with the translator's footnote corrections. The 
order of the subjects is as follows: the cell, tissues and simple organs ; organs 
and systems of organs, reproduction, general chemistry and physics of plant 
life, taxonomy.—J. C. A. 
The hardy bamboos. 
Mr. A. B, Mirrorp, author of “Tales of Old Japan,” has just given 
another result of his former residence in Japan ina book entitled “The Bam- 
Garden.”3 The book does not profess to be technically scientific, but it 
's none the less interesting to botanists, containing much information concern- 
* large and important group of plants. It deals with the hardy bamboos in 
Cultivation in England, thirty-eight of them being from China and Japan, one 
Arundinaria mac rosperma) from the United States, five from the Himalayas, 
_ three whose nativity is uncertain. The Himalaya region is looked upon 
as likely to be the most productive of new forms, those of China and Japan 
no | tescehce: are pointed out, especially the fact that it occurs at long 
< *rvals of time, and then in a wonderfully simultaneous way over large 
“aS, and results in the death of the plants. The older travelers, observing 
the orj : 
a of Eastern Asia. While this wholesale destruction at long inter- 
Spr sy actually occur, new growths spring very rapidly from the wide- 
aes “8 Tootstocks. The interval between times of inflorescence was for- 
a eaaRely as thirty years; but, though infrequent, it varies widely, 
SuAN-MiTForD, A.B.—The bamboo garden. 8vo. pp. xii + 224, illustrated 
‘ 3 FRE 
Alf 
¥ Alfred Parsons. London and New York: The Macmillan Co., 1896. $3.00. 
