Some comments on those chapters in Kerner and Oliver's 
‘Natural History of Plants,’’ which deal 
with reproduction. 
CONWAY MAC MILLAN. 
The bringing out of an American edition of Kerner and_ 
Oliver’s Natural History of Plants, together with its great 
attractiveness and generally great value, makes it certain that 
this work will be used throughout the United States as a 
reference book or encyclopedia of botany. It therefore 
seems sufficiently worth while to give some attention to the 
ideas that are promulgated in its pages. It is not a particu- 
larly pleasant task to point out imperfections in so beautifully _ 
printed and skilfully compiled a work as the one in hand, but 
if botanical students are to be referred to this Natural H1s- 
tory of Plants by their teachers, and it is to be held before 
them as an authority, it is of the greatest importance that 
some of its shortcomings should be known that they may be 
guarded against by teacher and by pupil. 
I shall confine myself in this paper to indicating some of 
the errors, as I take them, in only one division of the work— 
that is, the chapters on the Genesis of plant offspring, ™ 
volume II, pt. 1 (half-vol. III of the four vol. edition, Henry 
Holt & Co.). It is not too much to say that this part of the 
Natural History is absolutely untrustworthy, not only in its 
statements of theory but again and again in its statements 
of fact. Ihave convinced myself by reference to the orig 
inal German edition that these errors are not those of the 
translators. In order to point out a few of them a series of | 
quotations and comments will be given. 
protoplast does not require the special stimulus afforded by unio? 
with another.” 
p. “If a fruit is to arise, the ooplasm, i. e. the pron des 
tined to initiate a new generation, must unite with the fertilizing Pf!” 
toplasm which is called spermatoplasm,” and p. 46, “the union of tW? 
protoplasts constitutes the essence of fertilization.” 
Comment. The last quotation is truth but at variance with 
