24 SEEDLINGS. 
include descriptions of individua ention some particular 
phase of t ubject; but hitherto we d no general 
systematic account of the early stages in the life of flowerin 
Pp 
are nearly 1200 containing descriptions of the seedlings, and often 
also of the seeds an minati i 
arrangement of which the author has adopted. A copious biblio- 
graphy occupies 40 pages, and to complete the whole is a full index 
of all the species referred to in the text. 
To botanists who frequent the Linnean Society or read its 
Journal, the introduction will already be familiar. It consists in 
fact of several of the author’s papers already published by the 
Society, now revised and arranged in one chapter, and a very 
interesting one it makes. In it Sir John discusses at some length 
the form and size of cotyledons and attempts to explain their great 
variety by corresponding variations in the shape of the seed, or diffi- 
culties in the way of escape during germination. 
ome may question the value of these explanations, at any rate 
as regards the general principle that the form of the cotyledon is 
eae by the form of the seed and its arrangement or position 
¢ erein Bt Yee o ° 41 rae ay pee Se 1: ¢¢ ya aes ar 
the cotyledons and not only the adult leaves of the plant, but in many 
cases also those immediately following the seed-leaves, and so 
extended a series of observations bearing on the subject cannot but 
be welcome. The forms of cotyledons are, as Klebs observes, and 
as anyone may see by glancing through the present work, on the 
whole much simpler than those of the later leaves, and Klebs 
characteristic of the species in bygone ages, a more generally 
applicable explanation is that applied by Goebel to stipules, namely, 
that they are “ simplifi y arrest.”’ en, however, we consider 
the multifarious duties of the cotyledon, sometimes serving merely 
as a storehouse of food-material for the growing seedling, some- 
times as an organ for bringing into solution and absorbing the 
highly condensed and often comparatively insoluble food-stuff of the 
like Streptocarpus, Cyc ,» and many of the Qnagraries, assuming 
the size, form and importance of an ordinary foliage-leaf—whe 
take 18 Into consideration, we must surely admit that the 
universal foliage of deciduou 
time had differentiated them into their present varied forms.”’ Sir 
John does at any rate show evidence that in ce tain cases certain 
