55 



comparison of transpiration amounts and behaviors in plants of 

 widely separated localities, with a basis of accuracy which re- 

 moves this subject from the limbo of controversy into which 

 botanical literature has sometimes seen it descend." 



The care and thought evidenced throughout the book cannot 

 blind us to a subject which it must force uppermost in the minds of 

 all "ecologists," or "phytogeographers," or whatever we shall 

 presently decide to call them. We have already morphological 

 and physiological ecology, physiographic ecology, fioristic and 

 ecological plant geography, and now Dr. Shreve emphasizes the 

 physiological plant geography of Jamaica. The obvious overlap- 

 ping of terms, if not of concepts, must be a source of confusion to 

 those who wonder what it is all about anyway, and have the 

 right to be set straight by those most competent to do it. While 

 this is neither an objection to Shreve's use of the term, for it was 

 used, of course, by Schimper, nor a confession of obscurity in cur- 

 rent ecological writing, it is a plea for that clearness of expression 

 which shall makes our terminology capable of but one interpre- 

 tation, even by those who do not care to tread all the mazes of 

 modern ecology. 



Norman Taylor 



Trevena's Adventures among: Wild Flowers* 



For the spirit of ultra-professionalism in botany, it would be 

 difficult to find a more delightful antidote than Mr. John Tre- 

 vena's "Adventures among Wild Flowers."* Nowhere but in 

 rural England could there have been- written a book of this 

 peculiar flavor of enjoyment of the country. The book seems 

 to radiate the mellowed atmosphere of some cloistered rectory, 

 far from the arena of modern botany and all the hurly-burly of 

 everyday affairs. 



For the professional anatomist among botanists the author has 



deep indignation. "He would snatch off the blossom, tear 



it into fragments, exposing its vitals, recite a mass of technical 



details concerning adaptation and fertilization, like some divine 



preaching upon predestination; discuss ovaries, pistils, inter- 



* Longmans, Green & Co., New York, and Edward Arnold, London. 1914. 

 Price I2.00. 



