310 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



plant, but did find them in S. Plumieri. What plant docs Prof. 

 Holtermann mean by the latter? One species known as SL 

 Plumieri is identical with S. Koenigii, another species known 

 as S. Plumieri is quite a different plant. This final Section of 

 the work contains a number of examples of the direct effect of 

 environment upon plant-structures, but no material contributions 

 to the knowledge of "direct adaptation/' 



In fact, the book, with its preconceptions, its hasty conclusions, 

 its incomplete evidence, and its treatment of previous workers, 

 seems to belong to the class " in which the voice of intention 

 makes itself heard beneath the mask of insight" (Schopenhauer). 



Percy Groom. 



Lectures on Plant Physiology. By Dr. Ludwig Jost. Translated 



by E. J. Harvey Gibson, M.A., F.L.S. Oxford : Clarendon 

 Press, 1907. Pp. 564. 21s. net. 



Jost's Vorlesungen uber Pflanzenphysiologie, which appeared 

 in 1904, is recognized by all students of vegetable physiology as a 

 work of great and permanent value. Less exhaustive than Pfeffer's 

 treatise it is nevertheless a masterly summary of our knowledge 

 of this subject. It has, moreover, qualities of lucidity and precision 

 which place it in striking contrast with Pfeffer's more elusive 

 pages. A translation of Jost was therefore to be desired, and it is 

 fitting that the desire should be met by the Clarendon Press to 

 whose enterprise botanists are already so indebted. 



The English translation by Professor Harvey Gibson occupies 

 564 pages, about 130 pages less than the original. This compres- 

 sion is secured at the expense of the reader ; for so close-set are 

 the lines that it is not easy to follow their sequence. 



The illustrations are old and worn. Many are from well- 

 known sources such as the Bonn text-book and are certainly, so 

 far as English students are concerned, superfluous. The inky- 

 black pitcher plant (p. 185), the figures of mitosis (p. 268), the 

 blurred Mimosa (p. 513), may be cited as examples of the many 



figures which, unlovely in their present state, might be dispensed 

 with altogether. 



The cover bears the title " Jost's Physiology. Gibson," and 

 therefore encourages the hope that the German text of four years 

 ago has been edited and brought up to date. This hope the title- 

 page and translator's preface dispel. Professor Gibson states that 

 lie has not attempted to edit Dr. Jost's pages and that he has, 

 at the author's request, endeavoured to translate the German text 

 as literally as possible. These decisions are to be regretted, and 

 it is doubtful whether the work was worth doing on these terms ; 

 for, on such terms, it is hardly possible even to do justice to the 

 book itself, still less to remedy its defects. 



Occasional sentences in square brackets by the author do not 

 succeed in bringing the book up to date. Thus the chapter on 

 assimilation contains no reference to Usher and Priestley's work 

 nor to the recent researches of F. F. Blackman. Neither in the 

 bibliography to the chapters on Heredity and Variation, nor in the 



