Botany and Zoology. 415 



•sylvania with reference to the courses and kinds of valleys, their 

 methods of origin as determined by the stratigraphic and other 

 conditions, and illustrates the subject with sections, diagrams, 

 views and maps. 



III. Botany and Zoology. 



1. Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien. — -A. Engler and K. 

 Prantl. Part 2, six sections, in all 1024 pages, with 3537 figures. 

 (Leipzig, W. Engelmann, 1889). — The early signatures of this 

 work have been already noticed in this Journal. Following the 

 current fashion of "Subscription Books," the different signatures 

 .are scattered about among the different subjects in such a way 

 that a subscriber must get the whole work, in order to secure 

 what he may chance to want. And so we have part, or volume, 

 second, before volume first. But this cannot be said to be a real 

 hardship when the whole work must be regarded as indispensable 

 to any botanical library. The editors have had numerous and 

 able collaborators ; — Graf zu Solms, Ascheron, Drude, Buchenau, 

 Gtirke, Hackel, Petersen, Pax, Pfitzer, and others, but they have 

 themselves done a large portion of the work. 



The volume begins with the ti'eatise on the Gymnosperms by 

 the lamented Eichler, and the Monocotyledonous orders follow in 

 succession, closing with Orchidaceae. Drude has a very interest- 

 ing chapter on palms, Engler has treated of the following orders 

 among others, Aracese, and Liliacese, while Orchidaceae natu- 

 rally fell to Pfitzer. In treatment the authors have followed one 

 plan throughout, namely, that of giving with illustrations, every- 

 thing of importance in regard to the structure and relations of 

 the typical plants of the respective orders, presenting necessary 

 details regarding the genera. There appears to be in all parts of 

 the work a general desire to present the more important facts 

 relative to the plants which possess economic interest, and most 

 of the more striking figures have been prepared with reference to 

 this. The typography and illustrations are worthy of the text. 



G. L. G. 



2. Guide pratique pour les travaux de Micrographie, par 

 Beauregard et Gallippe. Paris, 1888, pp. 901. — This work is 

 the second and much improved edition of a hand-book of general 

 utility in laboratories where the microscope is used. It presents 

 a wide range of subjects, and most of them are well treated, but 

 there is great inequality in their presentation, and some of them 

 have no interest from a botanical point of view. For instance 

 more than eighty pages are devoted to the hair, considered in its 

 medico-legal aspects. But Botany and general technique receive 

 over three hundred and fifty pages. g. l. g. 



3. Contributions to the Physiology of Growth. — J. Wortmann 

 (Bot. Zeit., April and May, 1889), describes a method of studying 

 the effects of different media upon the growth of root-hairs, with 

 special reference to the increase or the diminution of turgescence. 



