CURRENT LITERATURE. 
Natural History of Plants. 
The completion of Oliver’s translation of Kerner’s “Natural His- 
tory of Plants”! has been very prompt, and continues the excellent 
typographical work and illustrations of the preceding parts, which 
have been reviewed in this journal (20: 327.) The subjects treated in 
the present parts are styled “the genesis of plant offspring,” and “the 
history of species.” Under the latter title the subdivisions are “the 
nature of species,” “alternation in the form of species,” “the origin of 
species,” “the distribution of species” and “the extinction of species.” 
These broad subjects are treated in the author’s usual interesting style, 
and a large amouni of useful information is brought together. Inthe 
first part of the second volume, however, in considering the subject 
of fertilization and fruit production, we are treated to several surprises. 
The author is very full of pleasant information concerning the general 
subject of pollination, and treats it with a fullness apparently out of 
all proportion to the other subjects, but of this we do not complain, 
for Kerner is at his best when treating of ecological subjects. But 
when fertilization and the fruit are considered? the first impression is 
that the ancient date of the German text has to do with the presenta- 
tion. Such is not the case, however, for so recent a thing as chala- 
zogamy is discussed, and a closing chapter on alternation of genera- 
tions is modern and proper enough; so different, in fact, from the body 
of the work, that it seems as if written by an entirely different author. 
Where the organs and processes of reproduction are spoken of in de- 
tail, there seems to be no conception of recent morphology; in fact 
the phanerogams and cryptogams stand wholly unrelated; the pollen 
grain contains the “fertilizing substance” and is the equivalent of the 
antheridium; the ovule finds its morphological equivalent in a bud; 
the male fertilizing substance passes by osmosis to the “ooplasm;” and 
Soon. The term “fruit” is not that of ordinary usage. It is defined 
as “a structure which is the product of fertilization, and at the same 
time constitutes the first step towards the renewal of the fertilized 
plant.” At the same time the term archegonium is discarded and 
*KERNER Von MarILaun, ANTON: The natural history of plants, their forms, 
Feat. reproduction, and distribution. From:the German by F. W. Oliver. 
ol. II, Roy. 8° pp. iv + 983. pl. 9-16. figs. 189-482. New York: Henry 
Holt & Co., 1895. $7.50. : 
€ also on this part Professor MacMillan’s criticisms, p. 20. The reviewer 
Wrote en re. S. 
tirely without knowledge of this paper.— 
[37] 
