"Shouidflndaplace in every college and pubtic liBrary."— 'Boston Transcript. 



KERNER'S NATURAL HISTORY 

 OF PLANTS. 



Translated by Professor F. W. Oliver, of University College, 

 London. A work for reference or continuous reading, at once 

 popular and, in the modern sense, thoroughly scientific. With 

 i6 colored plates and looo wood engravings. Four parts. 4to. 

 Cloth. $is.oonet. 



The Nation: " The author evidently planned at the outset to take every attractive 

 teature of plants of- all grades, and place these attractive features in the very best light. 

 For this purpose he has skillfully employed a brilliant style of exposition, and he has not 

 hesitated to use illustrations in black and in color with the freest hand. The purpose has 

 been attained. He has succeeded in constructing a popular work on the phenomena of 

 vegetation which is practically without any rival. The German edition has oeen accepted 

 from the first as a useful treatise for the instruction of the public ; in fact, some of its ilhis- 

 trations have been taken bodily from the volumes by museum curators, to enrich exhibi- 

 tion cases designed for the people. With two exceptions, the full-page colored plates 

 leave little to be desired, and might well find a place in every public museum in which 

 botany has a share. Most of the minor engravings are unexceptionable. They are clear, 

 and almost wholly free from distracting details which render worthless so many illustra- 

 tions in popular works on natural history. Professor Kerner's style in German is seldom 

 obscure — it is what one might fairly call easy reading; but it is no disparagement to him 

 and his style tostalethat the translation is clearer than the original throughout. . . In the 

 first two issues the authorwas engaged chiefly with thestudy of the structure of the plant, 

 and its adaptation to its surroundings. In this concluding volume he considers the plant 

 from the point of view of its relation toothers. Therefore he begins with a full and ab- 

 corbingly interesting account of reproduction in the vegetable kingdom, and then passes Co 

 an examination of species. . . With this book, there is no excuse for even busy people to 

 be ignorant of how the other half, the plant-half, lives." 



Botanical Gazette : " Kerner's work in English will do much toward bringing modern 

 botany before the intelligent public. We need more of this kind of teaching that will 

 bring those not professionally interested in botany to some realization of its scope and 

 greatinterest " 



Professor J. E. Humphrey : " It ought tosell largely here to colleges and public libra- 

 ries, as well as to individuals, and I can heartily commend it." 



John M. Macfarlane^ Professor in University of Pennsylvania : " It is a work that 

 deserves a wide circulation.'* 



Professor John M. Coulter in The Dial: *' It is such books as this that will bring 

 botany fairly before the public as a subject of absorbing interest ; that will illuminate the 

 botanical lecture-room ; that will convert the Gradgrind of our modern laboratory into a 

 student of nature.'* 



Neiu York Times : " A magnificent work, with its careful text and superb illustrations 

 The whole process of plant life is explained, and all the wonders of it." 



The Critic : *' In wonderfully accurate but easily comprehended descriptions, it ope*, 

 to the ordinary reader the results of botanical research down to the present time. 



The Outlook : ". . . For the first time we have in the English language a great work 

 upon the living plant, profound, in a sense exhaustive, thoroughly reliable, but in language 

 simple and beautiful enough to attract a child. . . The plates are most of them of unusual 

 beauty. Author, translator, illustrators, publishers, have united to make the work a 

 success." 



HENRY HOLT & CO., 29 West 23d Strest, New York. 



