NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 245 



nor Mr. Baker have seen specimens, nor have we been able to 

 obtain any. 



Cephalanthera rubra. — We are indebted to the Rev. H. P. 

 Eeader for a fresh specimen of this beautiful orchid, collected in a 

 Gloucestershire locality (which he does not wish to specify more 

 closely) , distinct though not very far removed from that in which 

 he found it last year (Journ. Bot., 1879, p. 277). 



Notices of Boofts au& Jftnnotvs- 



if 



German 



of Dr. K. Peantl ; the translation revised by S. H. Vines, 

 M.A., D.Sc, F.L.S. London: Sonnenchein and Allen, 

 1880. 



The number of good text -books of Botany is rapidly becoming 

 so large that the student is likely to suffer, in the choice of one, 

 under an embarras cle richesses. That the one now under our hands 

 is entitled to be included under the above category is implied in the 

 statement that it is founded on Sachs's « Lehrbuch,' being m fact 

 almost a condensed epitome of it. In fact, the failings of Sachs's 

 great work as a handbook for the English student are but too 

 faithfully reproduced. It seems to us a serious defect in a work 

 of this kind that just one-third of it should be devoted to the clas- 

 sification of flowering plants on a system which renders it almost 

 valueless to students in this country; a system which places 

 Pittosporm in the same natural order as Staphyhxcee and lhanea, 

 and Laurinea in the same order as Rctnnneulacea. Has not the 

 English editor presumed too much on the neglect of systematic 

 botany now prevalent in this country ? 



Here and there we find statements which are not abreast of the 

 state of knowledge in the year which appears on the title-page, as 

 in the assertion that " in angiosperms the pollen-gram is uni- 

 cellular," notwithstanding the now well-known observations ol 

 Elfving, which show that the statement can only be accepted with 

 very great modification. It seems inevitable that even the best 

 and most careful writers will stumble when attempting to elucidate 

 the chaotic terminology of cryptogams. The student will be sorely 

 tried in attempting to reconcile the statements that the repro- 

 ductive ceUs fof Fungi] which are produced asexually are spoken 

 of as govulia ox coridia (stylogonidia, endogomda, zoogomdia), 

 whereas those which are produced sexually are spoken of as spore* 



zygospore, oospore, ascospore, (sic) ;" " fungi as ^f r ° x dnce ±^JZ 

 ways, asexually by means of conidia, and sexually by means of 

 spores;" "true reproduction may be aflected in two wajs. 

 («) asexuallv bv cells termed gonidia, conidia, or spores. 



