CURRENT LITEKATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Botanical dictionary. 
IN 1900 JACKSON published the first edition of his Glossary of botanic terms, 
and last fall the second edition appeared.‘ We welcomed the first edition? 
as being a marked improvement upon any existing dictionary, and criticized 
but lightly the most obvious shortcomings. The compiler, most competent 
in many respects, had certain limitations by reason of his unfamiliarity with 
the content and consequently the terminology of morphology and physiology, 
and our general criticisms lay along these lines. 
In judging the second edition one looks to see whether this weakness of the 
first has been removed, either by the author’s own efforts, or by his associating 
with himself those who could supply the lacking knowledge. We find that the 
“revised and enlarged” of the title page means only that typographical and 
minor errors have been corrected in the plates of the first edition, and that a 
supplement of 68 pages has replaced the former “Additions during printing.’” 
ne can overlook much in a first edition that cannot be forgiven in a second. 
Perhaps there will be a third with a resetting that will allow the necessary improve- 
ment. In that hope we may point out certain objectionable features that should 
receive attention. 
In the first place it would be desirable to relegate to a separate list the many 
terms which have become obsolete, most of which are adopted from LINDLEY’S 
Glossary and were antiquated in his day. Technical language changes rapidly 
and such terms should be put into a museum and labeled as exhibits, if shown 
at all. We should then escape reading (except we were on antiquarian research 
bent) that an ovule-tube is “‘a thread-like extension of the amnios, rising beyond 
the foramen;” and, when we turn in wonder to see what the amnios in plants 
could have been, learning that it is ‘‘a viscous fluid which surrounds certain 
ovules at an early stage.”” We do not need often to know that prosphyses were 
“abortive pistillidia of the muscal alliance,” and the youngster who has occasion 
to look for the word should learn that both it and its definition are mere sur- 
vivals from a past century. 
Second, space could be gained by omitting to define common words which 
have no technical meaning, such as congeries, enlargement, entangled, evapora- 
« JACKSON, BENJAMIN Daypon, A glossary of botanic terms, with their deriva- 
tion and accent. Second edition, revised and enlarged. 12mo. pp. 37!- London: 
Duckwith & Co. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co.) 1905. 
2 Bot. GAZETTE 31: 68. 1901. 
448 
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