174 



Hermann Miiller, the two greatest masters of the science of 

 flower poHinatlon. The present volume contains, as a frontis- 

 piece, a Hkeness of Kolreuter, the pioneer in observations on the 

 pollination of flowers. 



Three volumes are planned, as follows : Vol. I. Introduction 

 and literature ; Vol. II. The obser\^ations in flower pollination 

 hitherto made in Europe and in the Arctic regions ; Vol. III. 

 Observations in flower pollination made outside of Europe. It 

 is announced that volume II is now in press. This " Handbook " 

 is of uniform binding with Pfeffer's Physiology of Plants and 

 Goebel's " Organography." 



Volume I gives a short historical review of the subject, from 

 Kolreuter to the present. This occupies 211 of the 382 pages. 

 The treatment here is general, and deals with the structure of 

 flowers and insects in relation to pollination. The remainder of 

 the book is an exhaustive bibliography down to January i, 1906. 

 Here the names of American authors occupy a conspicuous 

 place. 



There is a "Preparatory Note to the English Edition" by 

 I[saac] B[ayley] B[alfour]. The work is the first one of im- 

 portance on the subject in which the modern distinction between 

 the terms pollination and fertilization is recognized. Unlike the 

 numerous "popular" presentations of the subject, the illustra- 

 tions are none of them colored, but do, however, possess the 

 merit of really illustrating the text. There is no index, and 

 while one would have been very desirable, the character of the 

 text makes the loss felt less than is the case in most books, and 

 its need is fairly well supplied by a rather full table of contents. 



In any recent writings on pollination one naturally looks for 

 either confirmation or refutation of Plateau's iconoclastic contribu- 

 tions, which challenged the virtually universally accepted theory 

 of the ecological role of color in flowers. A " Supplement to 

 the Introduction " contains, besides a biographical note on Kol- 

 reuter, a critical examination of Plateau's observations and the- 

 ories. Their importance is minimized by Knuth, who disagrees 

 with Plateau fundamentally, and closes his critique with the 

 statement of the followinsr law : 



