516 . BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
The book by PEABopy and Hunt: is principally interesting as illustrating 
a very distinct recent tendency in elementary botanical instruction. It wi 
be recalled that not long since our elementary texts emphasized morphology 
and anatomy. Of late the new books have been giving more and more space 
to the physiology and ecology of seed plants. The book under review carries 
this to the extreme by relegating the morphology to a final “optional” chapter. 
Such an extreme position will scarcely be accepted generally, but the tendency 
in that direction is unmistakable. 
The tendency toward the abbreviation of the morphological part of the 
work is evident also in Experimental botany. The last chapter in the book 
takes up the “cryptogams.”’ This book is a laboratory manual rather than a 
textbook, though there is a small amount of descriptive text. Its unique 
feature is in the experimental attitude which is maintained throughout. The 
author feels that botany should be taught experimentally in the same sense 
that physics or chemistry is so taught; the selection of physiological materials 
follows naturally. The laboratory directions appear to be workable. A large 
number of the experiments are new to elementary texts. The new point of 
view and the new experiments make it a stimulating book for teachers. 
The laboratory manual by Frye and Rice is intended to meet the needs 
of teachers on the Pacific slope. The species suggested for laboratory work are 
selected with reference to the western flora. The directions for work are well 
written, and it is in every way an excellent little book. While it is written 
with western conditions in mind, and must be particularly welcome in that part 
of the country, it would be quite usable in the East as we L. 
EIKENBERRY. 
MINOR NOTICES 
Flora of Porto Rico.—The publication of the fourth fascicle of Vol. IV 
of UrBAN’s Symbolae Antillanae,§ which includes the sympetalous groups from 
the genus Tamonea of the Verbenaceae to the end of the Compositae, under the 
subsidiary title of Flora portoricensis, brings to a close a consideration of one 
of the most interesting of our insular floras. New species are described in 
Priva, Dicliptera, and Psychotria. The taxonomic part is followed by a 
achwort, in which the author sets forth the purpose of the work and reviews 
3 Peapopy, J. E., and Hunt, A. E. —— plant biology. 8vo. pp. xvi+207. 
jigs. gt. New York: Macmillan. 19 
4 Payne, F. O., Manual of a botany. 8vo. pp. 272. figs. 117. New 
York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Co. 1912. 
5 Frye, T. C., and Rice, G. B., Laboratory exercises in elementary botany. 8vo. 
pp. xxii+139. Boston: Ginn & Co. rogrt. 
6 UrBAN, IGNATIUS, Symbolae Antillanae seu fundamenta florae Indiae Occiden- 
talis, Vol. IV, fasc. 4. pp. 529-771. Flora portoricensis. Leipzig: Fratres Born- 
traeger. IQII. 
