CURRENT LITERATURE 



MINOR NOTICES 



Nathanson's textbook of botany. — This book 1 is written from a strictly 

 physiological standpoint, structures receiving scant attention except as they 

 are related to functions. The subject-matter is divided into two parts, the 

 vegetative life and the reproduction. The first part is subdivided into (i) 

 nutrition as a fundamental function of vegetative life, (2) the vegetative 

 organs of the algae, (3) the structural plan of the organs of the higher plants, 

 (4) the life history of the vegetative organs of the higher plants, (5) the orienta- 

 tion of the vegetative organs in space, and (6) the structure of the vegetative 

 organs under special conditions of nutrition. The second part is subdivided 

 into (1) reproduction in the lower plants, (2) mosses and cryptogams, (3) 

 reproduction in flowering plants, (4) the relation between the vegetative life 

 and reproduction, and (5) heredity. The book closes with a few remarks on 

 the principal groups of plants. 



This presentation could be read, with profit, by all classes of botanists, 

 particularly by morphologists, who stand in greater need of such a presentation. 

 Morphologists, however, can hardly regard the text as a "general botany/' 

 since it gives so little attention to development and phylogeny. — Charles 

 J. Chamberlain. 



Natal plants. 2 — The recent appearance of part 4 completes the sixth 

 volume of this well known work. The present part contains descriptions and 

 full-page illustrations of 25 species, most of which are of comparatively recent 

 publication, hence little known. A brief chapter is added giving notes and 

 corrections on plants mentioned in volumes I-VI inclusive. One species, 

 Brachystelma Franksiae N. E. Brown, is new to science.— J. M. Greenman. 



NOTES FOR STUDENTS 



Physiology of lichens.— The greatest advantage to the lichen of parasitism 

 with the alga was formerly supposed to be that the lichen received carbon 

 which the alga obtained from the air. But now it appears reasonable to suppose 

 that the lichen may furnish the alga a portion of the carbohydrates which it 

 secures from the substratum. This of course cannot occur when the lichen 



*Nathanson, A., Ailgemeine Botanik. 8vo. pp. viii+471. figs. 394. Leipzig: 



Quelle und Meyer. 191 2. M 10. 



Medley 



576-600. Bennett & 



Durban 



54o 



