SURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
The water-lilies 
CARNEGIE INsTITUTION has published a sumptuous volume bearing 
the above title. Mr. Conarp, the author, is a Senior Fellow in Botany at the 
University of Pennsylvania, and has spent four years in the preparation of this 
monograph. The purpose seems to be to present water-lilies from every botanical 
standpoint; and so far as this can be done by one man making most diligent use 
of his time it has been well done. The conception that research is the exhaustive 
study of a single form, and that all observations should be reported whether 
pertinent to anything or not, is well exemplified in this volume. The diligence 
it has demanded is beyond praise; the ideas directing it are questionable. The 
following statement in the preface is significant: ‘‘had the learned doctor (Cas- 
PaRY) of Kénigsberg assembled his vast knowledge into one connected whole, the 
Present work would be needed chiefly as a translation.” As this implies, the 
Volume is the assembling of a vast amount of information about water-lilies; 
and the scope of it is expressed by the following statement: “It has therefore 
seemed important to bring together the knowledge of the genus in all of its botan- 
ical relations and in its bearings on human life and history.” 
_ Itis questionable whether any one man is equipped to do this as a contribu- 
hon; he may do it as a compilation. Just here is the vital difference between 
research and collected information. It is unfortunate that many who are direct- 
ing research do not make the distinction. It would reduce publications in bulk 
and save an immense amount of time consumed in discovering the contribution. 
In the present work, for example, there have doubtless been made some real and 
Valuable contributions to botany, but there is no way of discovering them without 
looking through nearly three hundred large pages. 
: There are eight parts in the volume, each presenting water-lilies from a 
ctly different point of view, as follows: (1) history, including oriental liter- 
ature as well as pre-Linnaean literature; (2) structure, which is for the most 
sc tesemaiae (3) development, by which is meant what is usually considered 
ne morphology ; (4) physiology; (5) taxonomy; (6) distribution; (7) hybrids 
— aoa Varieties; and (8) culture and uses. The taxonomy must have been 
ri ame good condition, except perhaps as to nomenclature, for of the thirty- 
€s Tecognized only one is described by the author as new. 
The thirty plates are works of art, twelve of them being colored. It is a 
A empaiy to know that the Carnegie Institution has money enough to spend 
this lavish way.—J. M. C. 
SUE pearaee re 
I 
4to. Conarp, Henry S., The water-lilies, a monograph of the genus Nymphaea. 
