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1897 | CURRENT LITERATURE 131 
kind that we have seen, and the author is to be heartily congratulated on the 
success of her work. The book is to be begun at the opening of the school 
year, and the lessons are so arranged as to discuss those objects which are 
accessible at the time when the lessons are intended to be read. The 
teacher is expected to have the objects themselves in the room, and if pos- 
sible to have them collected by the children. We shall be much mistaken if 
an illustrated course of reading like this does not awaken in many a young- 
ster a new interest in plants. 
The et amhare are well drawn, and add much to the value of the book. 
g00 number seem to be original; a few are from Kerner, which are 
icaetnieue: while the majority are after the well known drawings of 
Sprague, in Gray’s text-books, and might well have been acknowledged. 
The illustrator has drawn the English Viscum instead of the American 
Phoradendron, which is the mistletoe ‘sold in our shops at Christmas” over 
the greater part of the country, though possibly the English mistletoe comes 
to the New York markets. Fig. 776, alleged to be “a seed cut across,” is 
like nothing in the heaven above or the earth beneath, and ought to be 
replaced. 
Besides being suitable for schools this is the kind of book for which many 
parents are looking to put into the hands of their children, or to read with 
them in the home. Botanists are often asked to recommend such books, 
and there is now one which can be named to inquirers without misgivings.— 
CR. B. 
The nucleus. 
THE recent extensive studies upon the cell nucleus have produced a 
voluminous literature regarding it. About three years ago a general and 
physiology of the cell nucleus.3_ In the general part he thus discusses meth- 
of research, nomenclature, distribution, number, size, and form of the. 
nucleus, its chemical composition, the structure of the resting nucleus, divis- 
ion, fusion, and physiology. In the special part the present state of knowl- 
edge regarding the nuclear phenomena of each of the larger groups of plants 
is given, with especial reference to reproductive processes. 
ow voluminious is the literature thus critically examined is probably not 
2 appreciated except by those who have given special study to cytology. The 
“main phenomena 
regarding the nucleus are much alike in anaes and ani- 
*Beihefte zum Bot. Cent. 3 :206, 320, 401. 1894.— 4: 81. 1895. 
_ 3ZIMMERMANN, A.— Morphologie und physiologie des pflanzlichen Relthaeees, 7 
Ein kritische Literaturstudie. 8vo, pp. viii + 188. fags * Jena: Garten Fischer. 
oe us oS 
