796 3 Recent Literature. | November, 
RECENT LITERATURE, 
BressEy’s Botany.'—To one who is desirous of obtaining a 
knowledge of general botany we should unhesitatingly recommend 
this manual. Most of the botanies which the student deals with 
are manuals of the flowering plants, rather than of plants in gen- 
eral, and thus he is led to believe that there are few plants in the 
world besides the flowering ones, that what do exist are of little 
importance, and thus his idea of the plant world is a limited and . 
one-sided one; and by plant we mean not a phanerogam or cryp- 
togram, but a plant as distinguished from an animal. In the 
same way many of our manuals of zoology are treatises on the 
vertebrated animals rather than on animals in general. It is true 
that in order to teach the elements of botany to beginners it is 
better to give them a general idea of the structure, physiology 
and mode of development of a common, well-known and accessit- 
ble flower or tree; but if the study of botany is to be made a dis- 
 cipline, if the student is required to acquire a good general 
knowledge of the plant world—and our college students should be 
required to attain such knowledge—he must, after acquiring a 
good general knowledge of a few common flowers, master the 
kind and extent of knowledge contained in a book like the one 
before us. In short, he should study with the aid of some such 
book as this the types of the leading divisions of plants, begin- 
ning with the Protophytes and ending with the alge, mosses, 
ferns and flowering plants, or at least, if the pupil is not carried 
so far in his studies, the teacher should be armed at all points in 
his knowledge of general botany, so that he may rightly inform 
the pupil regarding the structure and physiology of the lower 
plants, for the sake of bringing out more clearly the position 1n 
nature and general relations to other organized beings of the 
flowering plants. ` 
While, therefore, this book is designed apparently for advanced 
classes, it will be of especial value to the thousands of teachers 
of botany in the higher schools scattered over the country. 
Without disparaging school books written by other botanists, It 
seems to us that Prof. Bessey’s book is indispensable to the 
teacher of botany as it is or should be taught in these days in our 
leading colleges and universities. é 
It moreover derives its value in large part from being compiled 
from the works of Sachs, De Bary, Hofmeister, Strasburger, 
Nageli, Schwendener and others; the first part following quite 
_ closely Sachs’ botany, many of the admirable cuts in that book 
being reproduced, so that those who cannot obtain the more 
costly and voluminous work of Sachs can master this book. 
The volume is divided into two parts; the first consists of - 
1 Botany for High Schools and Colleges. By CHARLES E. Brssey. American Sci- 
ence Series. New York, Henry Holt & Co,, 1880. 8vo, pp. 611. . 
