154 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 630 



issued by the Department of Agriculture of 

 that province. In it the author " aims at 

 recording all rusts, as far as known in Aus- 

 tralia at present," so as " to prepare the way 

 for a consideration of the best methods of 

 preventing their appearance, or limiting their 

 spread in the numerous commercial crops sub- 

 ject to their ravages." Part I., consisting of 

 75 pages, is devoted to the general characters 

 and mode of life of the rusts (Uredineae). 

 This portion would be a very helpful text-book 

 for college students anywhere, since the mat- 

 ter is presented in a clear and comprehensive 

 manner. It appears that in Australia Puc- 

 cinia graminis does not infect the barberry, 

 even where the attempt is made to bring 

 about such infection by artificial means. This 

 is much like the condition which prevails on 

 our own great plains, where wheat rust is 

 sometimes very abundant, although there may 

 be no barberry plants in the neighborhood, or 

 if these are present they may have no aecidio- 

 spores upon their leaves. Part II., which in- 

 cludes 260 pages, is devoted to classification 

 and technical descriptions. The arrangement 

 here is principally by hosts, the rusts of the 

 Gramineae being taken up first, and then 

 those of Cyperaceae, Juncaceae, Liliaceae, 

 Eaemodoraceae, Amaryllidaceae, etc. Fifty- 

 five plates (eleven of them beautifully and 

 accurately colored) help to render the descrip- 

 tions more easily understood. A glossary of 

 technical terms, a bibliography, an alphabet- 

 ical host index, a fungus index (alphabetical 

 by genera) and a general index complete this 

 very satisfactory volume. 



POPULAR CANADIAN BOTANY 



This appears to be the day of popular hot- 

 any of a typa somewhat different from that 

 which used to be prepared for the perusal of 

 the non-scientific reader. All the books on 

 the ecological phase of botany owe much of 

 their readableness to the fact that they are 

 popular in a certain sense. They tell a good 

 deal about plants and vegetation in language 

 that may be understood by people who are not 

 experts in systematic botany. The scientific 

 lists of plants which used to be published were 



very illuminating to those botanists who knew 

 plants by their latest Latin names, but they 

 conveyed only the haziest ideas to other people, 

 even though they were botanists, in some other 

 field. So when we found books in which 

 there were consecutive pages of ' reading mat- 

 ter ' telling something about the kinds of 

 vegetation in a field, a county or a state, no 

 wonder that a good many of us rejoiced that 

 at last we had the means of finding out about 

 the plants of a region without the labor of 

 building up a picture of its vegetation from 

 the bare lists. All this time also there were 

 popular books which aimed to please the non- 

 scientific reader by presenting the beauties, 

 the oddities, the curiosities in nature. Such 

 books usually dwelt upon the wonders which 

 the reader might see if only he was willing to 

 open his eyes in the right way — the way of the 

 author, of course. That such books are not 

 yet extinct is shown by the republication, after 

 revision, of Mrs. Traill's ' Studies of Plant 

 Life in Canada' (W. Briggs, Toronto), a 

 book of somewhat more than two hundred 

 pages of descriptive text, accompanied by 

 twenty plates, a part of them done in colors. 

 The text is likely to appeal to many young 

 people who have not yet waked to an apprecia- 

 tion of the scientific aspects of botany, and it 

 will appeal, also, to many older persons who 

 look at all vegetation as something to be 

 admired and enjoyed without too much hard 

 study. It has been recommended by several 

 of the Canadian botanists as a book for use 

 in nature study work in the public schools, 

 and no doubt it might be helpful in such case 

 if used as a reading text for the purpose of 

 suggesting the notice of the many pretty and 

 attractive plants to be found everywhere. 

 Since poetry and Scripture are freely quoted 

 the moral effect of the book is likely to be 

 elevating, at least the author has distinctly 

 intended it to be so. 



THE PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OP SCIENCE 



The announcement is made that beginning 

 with the second year of its publication The 

 Philippine Journal of Science will be issued 

 in three divisions or series, viz., (a) general 

 science, (b) medical science, (c) botany. This 



