July 16, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



35i 



was kept well mown; the light, bright-green color was 

 most charming. There were whole rods of this lawn some- 

 times in irregular shapes unequaled by anything I ever 

 saw before. There was some June Grass in places and 

 some thin spots where the shade was dense. I did not 

 learn whether this Spear Grass was purposely sown, or 

 whether it had by degrees crowded out other grasses and 

 clovers." 



Perhaps the best way to exterminate this Spear Grass is 

 to put the land in fine condition, when with sufficient fertil- 

 izer, moisture and light, the small Red Top or June Grass 

 will be able to maintain a good footing against it. — Ed.] 



will specifically name the plants chosen for illustration, which 

 will involve little additional work, and will remove a cause for 

 just criticism of the present edition. 



Sliavv Sellout of Botany, St. Louis. William Trclcase. 



Recent Publications. 



Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany, for High 

 Schools and Elementary College Courses, by Douglas Houghton 

 Campbell, Ph.D., Professor of Botany in the Indiana University. 

 Boston : Ginn & Co., 1890; pp. 9—253. 



It is frequently said, and with some reason, that science is 

 easily learned in these days of abundant and good text-books. 

 No doubt this is as true of botany as of the other sciences, and 

 each new text-book should make the path easier and surer. 

 Unfortunately, there is no royal road to learning, and one re- 

 sult of the great activity of to-day in scientific work, and the 

 resultant specialization of its several departments, is that any- 

 thing more than an ipse dixit knowledge of its general laws is 

 becoming impossible for elementary classes that attempt 

 everything. To lay as good a foundation as is possible for an 

 understanding of such generalizations, most teachers attempt 

 a little laboratory work in one or more directions, in addition 

 to the customary lecture or recitation course. Professor 

 Campbell's book appears to have been written for such 

 teachers. 



Inability to cover everything in any such course has given 

 rise to a demand for elementary text-books treating in the 

 simplest manner the practical study of certain parts of botany. 

 Such books cannot, of necessity, be more than introductions 

 to the study, and the courses based on them can be only pre- 

 paratory to possible future special work in the branch cov- 

 ered. Their use should be possible under the guidance of a 

 teacher of only average ability, or even without a teacher. 



Excellent books of this character are both editions of Stras- 

 burger's " Botanisches Practicum " and their translations, the 

 botanical part of Huxley and Martin's "Biology," the "Practical 

 Botany " of Bower and Vines, which is an outgrowth of the 

 latter, and the "Handbook of Plant Dissection" of Arthur, 

 Barnes and Coulter. All of these attempt, in a somewhat similar 

 manner, to give a more or less comprehensive knowledge of 

 the structure of selected representatives of the principal 

 groups of plants. The principles of classification of these 

 groups arc brought out incidentally in nearly all such books. 

 Physiology is also fairly presented in books of a similar 

 character. 



A great stimulus was given to the study of structural botany 

 and the German methods of classification by the publication 

 and translation of the Text-Book of Sachs, nearly twenty years 

 ago, a book which, in its more recent edition, has been 

 divided into several. Some ten years ago Professor Bessey 

 did a good piece of work for teachers by writing his " Botany," 

 largely based on Sachs, and embodying most of its essentials 

 for elementary work, and the needs of still more elementary 

 classes are fairly met by the " Essentials of Botany," subse- 

 quently published by the same author. 



Each of these books has its uses. None is perfect ; but the 

 teacher selects one or the other according to the requirements 

 of the class to be taught. Those of the first group are best 

 adapted to use for teaching methods in connection with a 

 course of good lectures and demonstrations ; the others are 

 better adapted to the needs of the student who is to become 

 familiar with representatives of the principal groups of plants 

 and the prevalent basis of classification, when there are few 

 accompanying lectures. Professor Campbell's book belongs 

 to the latter class, rather than the former. , It embodies the 

 results of a considerable amount of original work, and con- 

 tains many original illustrations. That the former adds 

 nothing to the knowledge of the specialist, is no detraction 

 from its merit in this place. The latter are fairly done. In 

 the right hands, the book is likely to prove an acceptable and 

 useful aid in teaching, though it must be admitted that most 

 instructors would have been able to do their work had they 

 been obliged to depend, as in the past, on the older books. It 

 is to be hoped that if it comes to a second edition, the author 



A Catalogue of the Plants Found in New Jersey, being vol- 

 ume two of the Final Reports of the State Geologist of that 

 state, has appeared. It is from the pen of Dr. N. L. Brit ton, of 

 Columbia College, aided by various specialists, and occupies 

 nearly six hundred and titty pages, with a full index, which adds 

 to the value of the work. Dr. Britton, as is well known, takes 

 an advanced position on the question of nomenclature, and it 

 is well therefore, perhaps, to reproduce what he says in his 

 introduction on the subject: " The names adopted are based 

 strictly on the principle of priority of publication, the oldest 

 specific or varietal name available being retained in whatever 

 genus the plant is located, or whatever its rank as species or 

 variety. Many of our plants have originally been described 

 in genera other than those now accepted, and many were at 

 first supposed to be species which are now regarded as varie- 

 ties, or the reverse of this. The method adopted of citing the 

 original author of the specific or varietal name — the only per- 

 manent portion of the binomial — in a parenthesis, tells us who 

 first named the plant, while the added name behind the paren- 

 thesis shows who first brought the names together in their 

 present combination. This method has, with slight modifica- 

 tions, been generally adopted by zoologists, and by students of 

 fungi, algas, lichens and mosses, and its general use in botany 

 tends to bring all biological nomenclature into harmony." 



Whenever the adopted names differ from those in general 

 use in manuals or class-books of botany, these last are given 

 as synonyms in italics. As a work of reference this catalogue, 

 which is remarkably full in the geographical information it 

 contains, might have been made, perhaps, more useful by the 

 addition of a few references to easily accessible plant-portraits. 



The list enumerates : Of flowering plants, 1,919; Ferns and 

 their allies, 76; Mosses, Hepaticae and allies, 461; Lichens, 

 329; Alga;, 987; Fungi, 1,705; Protophyla, 164. Total, 5,641. 



Similar lists cannot be made too soon for every state, 

 county and neighborhood throughout the nation. We read 

 with regret of the rapid disappearance of many of our wild 

 animals, such as buffalo, elk, deer and Rocky Mountain sheep. 

 In like manner there are many agents at work which have 

 already exterminated a large number of species of plants from 

 entire counties. 



Among these destroying agents are the clearing and cultiva- 

 tion of the land and the draining and burning over of swamps 

 and marshes. In many regions fences along the highway have 

 been abandoned, and often the land is cultivated for crops 

 close up to the track of the wheels. The wood-lot is often 

 used as a pasture. In this case the young growth of timber is 

 nearly stripped clean ; light enters ; grass is encouraged and 

 creeps in. The days of such wood-lots as supplies of timber 

 are numbered ; soon the old trees begin to die at the top, 

 make a feeble growth, and the remains are removed for the 

 plow and the meadow. Even along the railways, it is becom- 

 ing customary to mow or burn the surplus land closely or to 

 cultivate for crops. 



In not a few instances the students of neighboring colleges 

 and schools, and members of societies interested in collecting 

 for the herbarium or for their gardens, besides collectors who 

 sell plants to distant nurserymen, all help on the speedy exter- 

 mination of many interesting plants. 



Notes. 



By the vote of the school children of New York the Golden 

 Rod has been chosen as the "State Flower." Out of a total 

 of 318,079 votes it received 81,308, while the Rose stood second 



with 79,666. 



The Messrs. Putnam are about to publish a book called 

 " The Trees of North-eastern America," by Mr. C. S. Newhall, 

 with a brief introduction by Professor N. L. Britton, of 

 Columbia College. 



Few plants are more useful for the summer decoration of 

 greenhouses than the Tuberous Begonias. Not long ago we saw 

 a house full of these plants from which all the double ones 

 had been rejected, and the effect was wonderfully rich. 



The Rose-chafer, whose depredations are described in an- 

 other column by Professor Smith, has not been long in learn- 

 ing that the rlowers of the great Japanese Lilac are suited to 

 its taste. Wherever we have seen these (lowers this season 

 they have been preyed upon by Rose-chafers. 



