Botany. 319 



III. Botany. 



1. The Microscope in Botany : a Guide to the Microscopical 

 Investigation of Vegetable Substances. From the German of Dr. 

 Julius Wilhelm Behrens. Translated and edited by Rev. A. B. 

 Hervey, A.M., assisted by R. H. Ward, M.D., F.R.M.S. Illus- 

 trated by thirteen plates and 153 cuts. Boston : S. E. Cassino & 

 Co. 1885. pp. 466, 8vo. — This is a large and full book, on the 

 microscope and its use in the investigation of vegetable structures 

 and products. For the translator, while it has evidently been a 

 labor of love, it must have been a long and serious task; and the 

 publisher has brought it out in the best style, one would say upon 

 superfluously fine and thick paper, which, however, allows the 

 illustrations to appear at their best. One-third of the volume is 

 devoted to the microscope and its appliances. The preparation 

 of microscopical objects and microscopical reagents are discussed 

 in about the same number of pages ; and the microscopical inves- 

 tigation of the principal vegetable substances is treated with 

 similar fullness. Dr. Ward has borne a part in the earlier chap- 

 ters. Dr. Coi'wentz of Danzig contributed the short and very 

 useful section upon the preparation of fossil plants. There is a 

 good section on drawing under the microscope. In respect to the 

 more important vegetable substances copious bibliographical ref- 

 erences are appended. The microscope in this country is in many 

 hands, and there is an increasing disposition to turn it to real sci- 

 entific account; — for which this volume should be helpful, a. g. 



2. Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences, San Fran- 

 cisco. — The new departure made by the issue, in February, 1884, 

 of the first number of this Bulletin, has been followed up with 

 spirit by the publication, last February, of the still ampler No. 3, 

 pp. 61-177, in direct continuation of No. 1. A No. 2, if it exists, is 

 therefore out of pagination, and we believe was only a fly leaf. 

 And now, in September, we receive No. 4, or at least the first part 

 of it, continuing the volume to p. 228. The papers are all botani- 

 cal, except two short ones by Dr. Behr on Lepidoptera. Dr. 

 Harkness, still zealously devoted to the mycology of the Pacific 

 coast, here gives us only a few pages, noting additional known 

 Fungi and characterizing some new ones: — among them his 

 Lycoperdon scidptum, well said to be " a curious and strikingly 

 beautiful species," having a singular tuberculated cortex, the 

 like of which has never been seen before. Plate I. gives a good 

 representation of it. 



Mrs. Curran, the efficient curator of the botanical collections 

 at the Academy (which, happily, are at length being well cared 

 for and in the way, as they should be, of steady augmentation), 

 who published, as her first paper, three new species of Californian 

 plants in the earlier part of the' Bulletin (among them a second 

 Acanthomintha, confirming the genus, with a difference), con- 

 tributes another to No. 3, chiefly from her own discoveries. The 

 most interesting one is her JVemacladus rigidus. She has also 



