137 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Puant Puystonuoey. 
Living Plants and their Properties. A Collection of wap by J. C. 
rtuR, Se.D., and D, 'T. MacDovueat, Ph. 0%: PEs ik, 
234; with 28 fame New York: Baker & jee 1898. 
Plant Lif considered with special reference to Form and Function. 
. R. Barnes. 12mo, pp. x, 428; with 415 figures. New 
eck: Holt. 1898. 
a, Botanische Mittheilungen von 8. ScowenpEner. 2 vols. 
453, 419; tt. 26. Berlin: Borntraeger. 
Living phish and theiy Properties is a collection of thirteen 
essays selected from popular addresses and articles presented by 
the authors within the last five years. In order to ‘‘meet the 
saehiomonts of their juxtaposed aa Me some have been revised 
and odie or amplified ‘‘to meet the demands of continuity, 
clearness, and harmony with peech botanical thou ’ The 
result is an eminently readable and charming little book, sufficientl 
i 
ou , 
as that on “hong of Witisosostinnn and Pain. Though it 
may be impossible to prove that plants experience pains and 
are ie yet the more we reese that the a of plants and 
mals are comparable phenomena, the nearer we shall be to the 
pee re rma cia of the siunédlise of living plants. Another, 
‘*The Right to Live” (no. xi.) supplies a better conception of a 
plant than that so ae conveyed, “at a seed-bearing machine. 
Dr. MacDougal confines himself more to the ascertained facts 
of plant-life. Manifestation of sensitiveness illustrated by Mimosa 
pudica is the subject of an interesting chapter, admirably helped out 
by some clear but simple pictures pe the position taken by 
the leaves under various circumstances. As : e essay was written 
itio 
with the first sunlight, finds no pla A second suggestive and 
well- pq ane ged entitled « Chlorophyll and Growth,’ is ada 
from a paper read before our own Linnean Society in 1896, on “The 
ialidion of ayy Growth of Leaves and the Chlorophyll Function.” 
Besides the Rene’ in the text, which are clear and serviceable, 
there are ri photographie plates illustrating the wild lettuce or 
compass-plan its dual function of weed and pole-star. The 
volume is wall pw inted and neatly bound, and is quite the kind of 
book for which we could wish wide circulation. 
Professor Barnes’s Plant Life is a more serious book, but not the 
less useful. In the words of the author, it is an attempt to a 
the variety and progressive complexity of the vegetative body ; 
