174 The Botanical Gazette. [Mareb, 
biology in the English high school, Boston. It is divided into two 
separately paged and indexed parts, the first treating the topic an- 
nounced in the title, while the second consists of a very much abbre- 
viated flora (with a key), including “a few of the commonest spring 
flowers of the northern and middle states.” This part, which isa 
mere publisher’s trap to catch the unsophisticated teacher or school 
board, may be dismissed as not representing the author’s ideas and as 
unworthy serious consideration. 
The most praiseworthy feature of the book is the point of view, and 
the method advocated and necessitated if the book is adopted. The 
point of view of the author is the only one from which the mass of sti 
dents will obtain any adequate conceptions of plant life. The plant 
is discussed as a living thing having relations to other living things 
and to its physical environment. The structure of this being is e 
amined only so far asit is related to plant dynamics. This preset 
tation of morphology and physiology is combined with directions for 
dissection or experimentation illustrating the points discussed. It's 
the first book of the kind which has come to our knowledge and ils 
plan must be commended as most excellent. 
But the execution leaves a good deal to be desired. In the fist 
place the author has been unable to skake off the traditions of tht 
past as fully as he ought to have done. This is manifest in the rele 
gation of the “flowerless” plants to a separate chapter of twenty 
pages, where they receive wholly inadequate treatment. Itis furt 
shown in the disproportionately elaborate treatment of the fiowet 
To the morphology of the flower and inflorescence as much ie 
given as to all the cryptogams, while forty pages more are devoted 
fertilization and the fruit. One sees also the survival here anit we 
of the antiquated features of the earlier books, ¢. g., in the age 
of the structure of those stems and roots only which have ais 
secondary thickening; in the retention of “exogenous” and “en 
enous” as designating stem structure; in the description of the ul 
as a cluster of leaf rudiments with no reference to the fundamen 
importance of the growing point, etc. The book is also a ste 
lacking in logical arrangement and in definitions. Nowhere ist e 
dent told what a leaf, stem or root is, nor is he led to discovet ho 
can distinguish the one from the other. By 00 
ut it must not be supposed that the book is largely bad. and 
means. In the combination of a large amount of physiology 
physiological experiments with the morphology and dissectio® nest 
general accuracy of what is given (though there are some “eo 
and in the selection of the abundant illustrations the book is 4 
advance upon its predecessors. 
