184 Bibliography. '■ 



illustrated by wood cuts,) and a brief notice of their properties and 

 uses. This is followed by the Alliances of Plants, a conspectus of the 

 method for grouping the orders employed in the second edition of the 

 author's Introduction to the Natural System. To this succeeds a sketch 

 of a new distribution of the vegetable kingdom ; in which the author 

 gives prominence to some characters employed by Jussieu, &c., but 

 which he had until lately deemed of minor comparative importance. 

 The plan now suggested may be easily made to harmonize with that of 

 Endlicher. The portion denominated Medical Botany, consists of a list 

 of the principal medicinal plants which are known in a living state in 

 Europe, arranged and numbered according to the author's Flora Med- 

 ica, with a brief indication of their properties and uses. 



4. Botanical Teacher for North America, in ivhich are d,escrihed the 

 indigenous and conwion exotic plants groioing north of Mexico ; by 

 Laura Johnson, under the supervision of Prof A. Eaton. Second 

 edition, Troy, 1840. pp. 268, 12mo. — On the first page of this work, 

 our attention was arrested by a sweeping charge against the teachers 

 of botany in this country, which in justice we shall extract verbatim : 

 " The second set [of authors] are actuated by the sinecurism of lota- 

 ny. Their books are incongruous compilations, to he forced upon pu- 

 pils ly teachers. The teachers are mostly rewarded ly look-pedlars, 

 who are authorized to present them with a few copies and many compli- 

 ments for this service. Neither of these kind of authors or teachers 

 conceive it a duty to make practical botanists of their puplis. Students 

 are made to believe, and so teach their students in turn, that said-off 

 lessons make the botanist. Perhaps a few garden plants are sometimes 

 shown as a fallacious pretence. Many hundreds of our schools, of 

 fair names, have heen occupied for years in this manner^ This is a 

 very serious charge, if true, which we trust it is not, and is preferred 

 in a very unqualified manner. But if the books which these teachers 

 impose upon their pupils are as worthless as the present volume, pitiable 

 indeed is their condition, and small the benefit they are likely to derive 

 from their study. The following morceau, extracted from the fourth 

 page, will enable our botanical readers to judge for themselves. 



" The student, before he studies vegetable physiology, and natural 

 alliances of plants, must understand the seed, with its astigmatous sacs 

 or testce. The ovule (with all its appendages within the stigmiferous 

 tunic or carpel) becomes the seed, with its testa or tripple [sic'] cuticle, 

 and its outer sacks. In case of the peach, the white meat is the seed ; 

 and the thin, brownish covering inside of the shell, and the very smooth 

 outside of the white meat, are, by some authors, called the quintine, 

 quartine, and iertine coats. The shell (putamen) is the secimdine, 



