Bibliographical Notices. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



An Introduction to Botany. By J. Lindley, Ph.D., F.R.S. Fourth 

 Edition, with Corrections and numerous Additions. 



Dr. Lindley's welLknown Manual now makes its appearance in 

 two considerable volumes, another proof, if such were wanting, of 

 the increasing interest for botany in this country. This edition may 

 almost be regarded as a new work compared with its predecessors, 

 little remaining unaltered but the plan and illustrations, its principal 

 value arising from its containing a carefully collected mass of quo- 

 tations from almost all the more important memoirs and reports 

 published during the interval since the former edition was printed. 



Under these circumstances, we have to speak of the execution of 

 the work more than of original subject-matter, and to indicate the 

 manner in which the author has dealt with his materials. 



In the first place must be mentioned with all praise the extremely 

 lucid manner in which Dr. Lindley realizes and expresses the various 

 doctrines he has to communicate ; we have, probably, few scientific 

 writers who excel him in this respect. 



With regard to the first part of the work, treating of elementary 

 structure, the recent investigations on the subject are very fully 

 given in the form of extracts from our own pages, the Ray reports 

 and similar sources. We may notice one error retained from the 

 former edition, aflirming what would be a strange anomaly if 

 correct, viz. (i. p. 142) the quotation from the ' Ann. des Sc.,' that 

 Nerium Oleander and other plants have cavities in the cuticle in lieu 

 of stomates ; the fact being that the stomates are situated in the 

 walls of cavities in the leaves. 



At page 'IQQ (vol. i.) Dr. Lindley states that he does not see how 

 Schleiden's views " affect the distinction stated to exist between 

 Exogens and Endogens, or offer any valid objection to the employ- 

 ment of those terms." Now it is or should be a canon in termino- 

 logy that one word should have only one meaning, and since those 

 two words, Exogens and Endogens, have been used to express a 

 distinction mistakenly assumed to exist, to retain and apply them on 

 different grounds is surely inadmissible. To exogenous growth as 

 existing in Dicotyledons, there is no corresponding or rather oppo- 

 site process in Monocotyledons, to allow of the antithetical term, 

 endogenous growth, the gn)wth of Monocotyledons differing from 

 that of the first year of Dicotyledons in points not at all contem- 

 plated by the author of the expressions in question. 



In vol. ii. p. 82 et seq. we have a long discussion on the questions 

 whether flowerless plants have sexes or seeds. Dr. Lindley is not 

 inclined to admit their existence, but he concedes the idea of sexual- 

 ity in the view taken by Mr. Thwaites ; on the ground that " it is 

 not so much the mere presence of sexes, or of a mysterious sexual 

 essence, that is denied, as that the organs called sexual in flowerless 

 plants are of the same, or a similar, nature as those known to be 

 sexes in the higher orders." It seems to us that this is rather a 



