1910] CURRENT LITERATURE 67 
uredinium, and telium in substitution for teleuto, uredo, aecidial, and sperma- 
gonial stages” of the rusts, instead of the reverse order. On page 467 Trametes 
Pini is said to be the ‘chief cause of loss among fungi.’’ 
On the whole, the book is an excellent presentation of the subject of plant 
pathology from an American standpoint. Most of its shortcomings relate to 
individual or minor details. In it the vast amount of material collected through 
the agencies of the experiment stations and the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
has been brought together for the first time in an easily available form. The 
facts presented are largely derived from American work and apply to American 
conditions. It is sufficiently comprehensive for a textbook, and will be of much 
service as a reference book in the field which it represents. The style is clear and 
concise, and the arrangement is that which the teacher would naturally adopt. — 
The free citation of literature is of great service to both student and teacher. 
The book is abundantly illustrated, and both illustrations and press work are all 
that could be desired—H. HassELBRING. 
The morphology of plants 
The third and last volume of VELENovsK‘’s textbook+ on the comparative 
morphology of plants deals with the flower of phanerogams, the ovule, pollination, 
embryo, seed, fruit, and the evolution of plants. Fertilization, parthenogenesis, 
and polyembryony are treated under the section on the ovule, preceding the 
description of pollination. The volume opens with the following definition of a 
flower: ‘The flower of phanerogams is a shortened axis of limited growth, which 
carries foliar organs adapted to the purposes of fertilization.” We are assured 
that this definition applies to all cases except the female structures of the genus 
Cycas, which are not regarded as flowers. 
The book deals almost entirely with the grosser external features of plants, 
little attention being given to the details of development. It must be confessed 
that the phase of morphology represented by this book is somewhat neglected by 
modern morphologists, who are likely to pay insufficient attention to the taxonomic 
side of botany. Morphologists should find the work useful as a reference and as a 
supplement to their taxonomy; but as a complete textbook of morphology it is 
not comprehensive enough to meet modern demands.—CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN. 
NOTES FOR STUDENTS 
The cretaceous plants of Japan.s—This interesting product of the Anglo- 
Japanese understanding represents the structural study of partly calcified and 
partly silicified nodules from the Upper Cretaceous of Hokkaido in northern 
4 VELENOVSKf, Jos., Vergleichende Morphologie der Pflanzen. Vol. IIT. pp. 478. 
pls. 6-9. figs. 400. Prag: Fr. Rivnaé. tgto. For review of vols. I and II see Bor. 
GAZETTE 44:310. 1907. 
OPES, Marte C., and Fuyu, K., Studies on the structure and affinities of 
5 Sr 
Cretaceous plants. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London B 201:1-90. pls. I-9. 1910. 
