66 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Daphne Laureola was recorded owing to indigenous appearance is 

 correctly shown for Dorset. Four species growing near Uplyme, 

 but across the boundary, appear in the Devon list. Petasites 

 ovatus was mentioned because, although the Flora states it to be 

 generally distributed, I have never seen it anything but local in 

 any part of Britain: in the Flora of Hants, ed. 2 (1904), it is 

 said to be "not common; absent in Wight," and is recorded for 

 six only out of twelve districts. With regard to Glyceria pro- 

 cumhens and FesUica rottbmllioides, the nearest station to Lyme 

 shown in the second edition of the Dorset Flora is Burton Brad- 

 stock, which is some distance to the east of Bridport ; and although 

 Golden Cap, from w^hich Jasione montana is recorded, is much 

 nearer, yet it is well outside the radius of the Dorset localities in 

 my paper. — H. W. Pugsley. 



John Snippendale. — In Journ. Bot. 1910, p. 142, appeared a 

 question as to this person, of whom I then knew nothing. I have 

 now found his name in Linnseus's Bibliotheca Botanica (1736, 

 p. 73), whence it appears that " Joh. Snippendalius " was Professor 

 of Botany in the " Hortus Medicus Amstelodamensis," of which 

 he published a Catalogue in 1646. No further information is 

 given in the later editions of the Bibliotheca, although these in 

 other cases often supplement the first edition. This Catalogue is 

 also mentioned in the first edition of Pritzel's Thesaurus (p. 279), 

 where the author's name is spelt "Snippendal." — James Britten. 



REVIEWS, 



Vergleichende Physiologie. By August Putter. Pp. viii + 721 ; 

 174 figs. Jena : Gustav Fischer, 1911. 



The comparative method has been used with great success on 

 the morphological side of biology ever since the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion breathed new life into the dry bones of anatomy. On the 

 physiological side, however, the rise of the comparative method 

 has been of much slower growth. Physiologists have felt natur- 

 ally that experiment was the chief weapon wdth which to attack 

 their particular problems. But of late years it has been realized 

 that even in this branch of biology comparison may prove a very 

 valuable, though subsidiary, method for the elucidation of nume- 

 rous physiological questions. 



The term comparative physiology often is apphed erroneously 

 to the study of the physiology of organisms other than man. 

 True comparative physiology is concerned with the fundamental 

 unity of the life-processes of all living organisms, i. e. the general 

 biological problem of organization, metabolism, and irritability. 

 It is with such questions that Dr. Piitter is concerned in this 

 weighty book of over seven hundred pages. The author points 

 out that the study of the physiology of the lower animals, of 

 plants in general, and of bacteria have all been carried on to a 

 large extent on independent lines, by workers more or less ignorant 



