CURRENT LITERATURE 



BOOK REVIEWS 

 Two new college texts 



The two recent texts by Ganong and Gager agree in the modern spirit 

 evident in each, but they differ distinctly in the selection and arrangement of 

 material. In Ganong's text 1 the arrangement of topics is primarily mor- 

 phological. This arrangement will undoubtedly prove here, as it has in many 

 an earlier text, its peculiar fitness for an introductory textbook, because of 

 simplicity and its ready intelligibility to the beginner, who already knows the 

 primary organs of the plant by sight and by name. In the 6 chapters of the 



body of the book the discussion in succession of leaf, stem, root, flower, fruit, 

 and seed is carried out in each case with that close interrelating of structure 



function 



intimate 



organization. Each of these chapters includes a section on the economics and 

 cultivation of the structure under consideration. The chapter on the flower 

 contains concise but clear discussions of the significance of sex, of heredity, of 

 evolution, and of plant breeding, while the following chapter has a brief section 

 on plant diseases. Ecology and paleobotany are not discussed in this part. 



The 274 illustrations include a considerable number of original ones, of 

 which figs. 85 and 162 are excellent examples, and there are many less frequently 

 copied ones from various standard works. It is not clear to the reviewer, 

 however, that such synthetic diagrams as those of the leaf, stem, and root 

 (figs. 11, 105, 166) are really needed by the average student. They do sug- 

 gest, it is true, certain more important features of the structure and work of 

 each organ, but because of the omission, for the sake of simplicity, of some other 

 essential structures they are liable to be misleading. Properly selected, 

 accurate drawings would avoid this objection and still be entirely intelligible. 

 The reviewer is inclined to question also whether the substitution of drawings 

 of models showing leaf arrangement, for figures of the stems and leaves them- 

 selves, is really necessary as an aid to the imagination of the ordinary college 

 student. The second part, entitled "The kinds and relationships of plants," 

 is expected to be ready during 191 7. 



1 GANONG, William F., A textbook of botany for colleges. Part I. The structures 

 and function- of plants. 8vo. pp. xi+401. New York: Macmillan. 19x6. 



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