24 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
scraps of verse as usually have so fatal an attraction for those 
ho deal with flowers. e have instead a sternly scientific 
treatment of plant life, which will demand close attention on the 
part of the reader desiring to assimilate the instruction generously 
provided for him. 
_ The author’s leading idea is to trace the history of plant-life 
from its first appearance on the earth (distinguished amongst the 
and Lichens, it is supposed that the course of evolution has been 
of associated trees. Even at the present day, arguments in sup- 
port of this supposition are furnished by the mode in which places 
effectively sterilised by lava or other destructive agents are 
gradually reoccupied by vegetable growths, ; 
Beyond this sketch of developments, the life-history of plants 
is also fully dealt with, from the individual cell and its protoplasm, 
which everything is ultimately based, up to all the combi- 
nations of cells of which vegetable tissues are built Pp, 
manner in which, individually and collectively, they 
and the 
conduct 
themselves 
them on purpose.” In various instances it is pointed out how 
their environment. Difficulties there are, of course, in plenty— 
here are one or two specimens. 
Of Anemone nemorosa we are told (p. 26) that the various 
parts—stem, roots, leaves, blossom, and so on—all contribute 
somehow to the 
he 
€e aware even of the existence of the flower for which they 
work themselves to death.” ndeed, far from this, “it might be 
p to show that some of them are competing eagerly with 
as the seed is sca; 
and awaiting the reviving influence of the spring.” 
But, which seems to introduce a new and unexpected element 
