274 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 5, li 



Naturally, the part of the Handbook most symmetrically 

 treated — it one may use such an expression — is that relating- 

 to Vascular Cryptogams and Muscine;e, for those groups 

 have been so long and so well studied that it is possible to 

 give in a condensed form an ticcount which not only will be 

 recognized as accurate by experts, but will also be intelligible 

 to students. With regard to Thallophytes it is quite another 

 matter. He must be certainly very sanguine or strongly pre- 

 judiced who believes that any really satisfactory classification of 

 Thallophytes has as yet been discovered. About all tliat can 

 l)e done is to relate the facts known with regard to their 

 structure and des'elopment in as clear and simple an arrange- 

 ment as possible, witliout much pretense at classification, as 

 the word is understood when speaking of higher plants. The 

 subdivisions adopted are Alga% Fungi, Mycetozoa and Proto- 

 phyta, and, admitting that these subdivisions are arbitrary 

 and, in a sense, mechanical rather than strictly scientific, this 

 arrangement has what appears to us the supreme merit, in a 

 work of this kind, of being more easily followed than other 

 classifications which have been proposed, and it also brings 

 near together orders of plants which, whether rightly or 

 wrongly, are always studied together. For a long time to 

 come we shall have algologists and mycologists, but we are 

 not likely to have conjugatists, oosporists and carposporists. 

 What the student needs is to have pointed out distinctly the 

 parallelism of the reproduction in certain Algie and certain 

 Fungi — which the present method sufficiently accomplishes — 

 and there the matter had better rest until experts have set- 

 tled more clearly the doubtful points in the relationships of 

 Thallophytes. 



If we look at the manner in which the authors have carried 

 out their general plan, we are struck at once with the unusual 

 and disproportionate amount of space devoted to Algse ; 120 

 pages to AlgcE proper and forty-three to algoid pro tophytes, while 

 only loi pages are devoted to Fungi, including Mycetozoa, and 

 Bacteria barely cover seven pages. In most text-books con- 

 siderably more space is given to Fungi than to Algae. We do 

 not, in the least, object to the amount of space given to Algae, 

 but, on the contrary, regard this part of the work as the most 

 valuable, as it goes beyond what is given in similar treatises, 

 and contains a deal of information which could have been ob- 

 tained only by an extended and careful reading. But the rel- 

 atively small space given to Fungi has made it impossible to 

 treat adequately a numljer of subjects on which the student 

 and general reader ought to have clearly expressed and fully 

 explained information, and we consider this part of the Hand- 

 book too condensed to be followed readily by those who are 

 not already pretty well informed. The placing of Diatomacea 

 among Protophyta rather than near Desmidiacece is scarcely to 

 be commended, for, although we agree with Mr. Bennett in 

 thinking it very doubtful whether the Diatoinacea are zygos- 

 poric in the strict sense, we still believe that they can be de- 

 scribed better in connection with Desmidiacea than when re- 

 moved to the ill-assorted group of Protophyta, witli which 

 they have little in common except that their reproduction is 

 not well known. Nor can we agree that the position of 

 UlvacecE is uncertain, but think that they belong to Confer- 

 voidecB and not to Floride^, for their resemblance to the genera 

 Porphyra and Bangia is merely superficial, and does not indi- 

 cate a real affinity. 



In short, the Hand-book is a valuable summary of the pres- 

 sent state of our knowledge of a branch of botany which is 

 becoming more and more popular, and the editorial work has 

 been well done, so that the errors which are seen at first read- 

 ing are few and unimportant. We would, however, suggest 

 that the name Mazcea, on p. 440, should be changed to Nosto- 

 chopsis. If there is any general criticism to be made it is that 

 the work, as a whole, has perhaps a little too much the air of 

 a catalogue of orders and sub-orders, and one would be glad 

 to have the essential and general parts brought out somewhat 

 more plainly by larger type or other printers' device, leaving 

 specific details to smaller type. There is only one point on 

 which we have any serious objection to offer, and that is the 

 introduction of new terms to replace others already well fixed 

 in English botanical literature. In the introduction the follow- 

 ing statement is made ; " Many of the terms which we employ 

 throughout this volume, such as sporange, archegone, an- 

 therid, coenobe, sclerote, epiderm, etc., will probably be ac- 

 cepted at once ; and it seems strange that the awkward and 

 uncouth foreign forms of these words should have held their 

 ground so long." We venture to hope that they will not be 

 accepted, and would suggest that the reason why the so-called 

 "awkward and uncouth foreign forms" have held their ground 

 so long is because they have proved by experience to answer 

 their purpose perfectly well. So far as technical botanical 



terms are concerned there is no intrinsic reason why they 

 should be English in form. It is one of the many points of 

 superiority of the English language that it can absorb and 

 make a part of itself technical terms, whether classical com- 

 pounds or derived from modern languages, and it is neither 

 necessary nor in good taste to trim and prune words which 

 have for years been accepted. Why, we would ask, is the 

 commonly-accepted epidermis more uncouth than epiderm ? 

 or why is the French word sporange any less foreign than 

 sporangium, which has been adopted for years by good 

 English writers ? Why is the word mycelium, which has be- 

 come so thorouglily a part of the language that -it has almost 

 ceased to be technical, to be abandoned for the decidedly un- 

 English mycele ? To quote a passage at random on p. 370 : 

 " The male cells are ^^///;2()Zi^j formed in a flask-shaped an- 

 therid, somewhat resembling a perithece." The unprejudiced 

 reader would hardly be struck by the peculiarly "English" 

 look of the sentence, and the meaning would be quite as plain 

 if, adhering to the common nomenclature, the sentence had 

 run as follows : The male cells, called spermatia, are formed 

 in a flask-shaped sack, the spermogonium, which somewhat 

 resembles a perithecium. The substitution of the word 

 " sperm " for "spore " in compounds, like "zygospore " and 

 "oospore," only makes a bad matter worse. We can only 

 regret that in a book, otherwise so good, the authors have 

 allowed themselves to be carried away by what we must con- 

 sider an unwise desire to substitute new terms for well-estab- 

 lished terms which fulfil their purpose sufficiently well. 



Correspondence. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Several years since, when the question of injury to 

 conifers was being discussed in the Gardeners' Monthly, I had 

 occasion to notice it somewhat in Cambridge and elsewhere. 

 Red squirrels were abundant, and were seen to clip some of 

 the twigs found on the ground, but the marks they left at the 

 broken end or about the buds were wanting on many twigs, 

 whicli nevertheless appeared as if broken across — never with 

 the smooth surface, characteristic of self-pruned twigs of the 

 Poplars, Elms, "brittle-branched" Willows, etc. In St. Louis, 

 where red squirrels are unknown (at least to me), the ground 

 is often covered by hundreds of freshly-fallen twigs under the 

 Norway Spruce, etc., especially toward the end of winter. 

 Careful and repeated observation for the last four years has 

 convinced me that if fox or gray squirrels (which, however, I 

 have never seen in the botanical garden), or l)irds of any kind 

 are responsible for the injury, they work during the night, and 

 leave no evidence of their work on the fallen twigs, which are 

 quite like those seen in Cambridge. So far as our trees are 

 concerned, I quite agree with Mr. Fernow that the twigs are 

 simply shaken off. After a sleet-storm the number is some- 

 times very great. Win. Trelease. 



St. Louis, May 5th. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — I have read your tombstone article with solemn inter- 

 est. I am much ainongst graves ; and were it not for the 

 broken lives and hearts I often see at the edge of newly- 

 opened ones, cemeteries and their monuments would suggest 

 nothing to me but the tragedy of human vanity. May your 

 article help to biing such tasteless egotism into disrepute, and 

 establish some congruity between the gravestone and the fact 

 of death. 

 New York City. Clergyman. 



Vineland, New Jersey. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — A land of Vines it is indeed, and the name which its 

 venturesome founder bestowed, upon this borough in the way 

 of prophecy has been amply justified by the facts of subsequent 

 history. And yet the belief that these sandy stretches in south- 

 ern New Jersey were nearly worthless for any form of hus- 

 bandry was almost universal twenty-five years ago, and the 

 land had been called "The Barrens" time out of mind. The 

 charcoal crop, however, was always a sure one, and there are 

 men now living who have cut twice over some portions of the 

 Vineland tract and carted the charcoal into Philadelphia, thirty- 

 four miles away. This luxuriance of tree-growth ought to 

 have suggested that the soil was not altogether destitute of 

 plant-food. One Chestnut stump, at least, remains within the 

 borough limits which is twenty-one feet in circumference, aud- 

 its roots must have tapped big reservoirs of ferfility some- 

 where. And yet no one had faith enough in the land to clear 



