110 



man and yet cites Schneider's Guide is, to say the least, strangely 

 askew in botanical perspective. More than once the same work 

 is cited in different places under different titles and throughout 

 there is lack of attention to minor details that distinguish a really 

 valuable bibliography from a random selection of unassorted 

 titles of papers. Accuracy in bibliographic citation is one of the 

 characteristics of recent American botany, but in this work there 

 is a relapse toward English inaccuracy which is far below the 

 American standard. 



No less curious are the titles of chapters where logical arrange- 

 ment would be naturally expected in a systematic work, and where 

 the student needs to have all the mechanical aids that are possible 

 to a clear coordination of the subject. Chapter IV., for instance, 

 is entitled "Classification" and that word occupies the headline 

 of the right-hand page throughout the chapter, but only a page 

 and a quarter of the chapter is devoted to the subject of " classi- 

 fication," where that word also appears as a subtitle or one of the 

 subdivisions of itself, while the bulk of the chapter is devoted to 

 the lowest groups of plants, mainly the schizophytes and the 

 diatoms. Although the author includes both the bryophytes and 

 the pteridophytes under the " Archegoniatae," Chapter VII. alone 

 is headed " Archegoniatae " and treats only of bryophytes, while 

 Chapters VIII. and IX. are headed " Pteridophyta " with no sug- 

 gestion in the headlines of their relation to any other coordinate 

 division. In a similar way the subtitles are a strange mixture of 

 illogical sequence and lack of proper subordination. For exam- 

 ple, in the chapter on the " Angiospermae," three fifths of which 

 is not devoted to that subject but to one of its two divisions, the 

 following subtitles appear in coordinated typography: "The 

 Flower," "The Ovule," " The Antipodal Cells," "Pollination," 

 " The Homologies of the Embryo-sac," " Germination," " The 

 Leaf," " The Floral Leaves," " Structure of the Flower," " Classi- 

 fication of the Angiosperms." 



The illustrations are not up to the standard of first-class Amer- 

 ican laboratories, many of them being sketchy and showing an 

 unfinished appearance. In this field a student should have models 

 set before him in the way of botanical illustration, at least of as 



