No. 445-] 



NOTES AND LITERATURE. 



11 



sible that there is less personal bias than would be the case in a work 

 based mainly upon the personal investigations of the writers. 



The title of the book is, perhaps, somewhat misleading, as it deals 

 only briefly with general morphology ; but we think the authors have 

 done well to restrict it mainly to the sporangium, gametophyte and 

 embryo, since a general morphology of the vast group of Angiosperms 

 could hardly be compressed within the limits of a single volume. 



The book comprises seventeen chapters, of which the first nine will 

 be found of the greatest value to the student for reference. In these 

 the general morphology of the flower, the microsporangium, macrospo- 

 rangium, male and female gametophyte and embryo are treated in 

 detail, and on the whole extremely well. 



The chapter on the flower is in our opinion one of the very best in 

 the book. The author (we assume the senior author) shows here a 

 sureness of treatment which comes only from an intimate first-hand 

 knowledge of his subject, this being by no means so evident in some 

 of the succeeding chapters, especially ttie one on the microsporangium, 

 which immediately follows this chapter on the flower. 



The chapter on the microsporangium opens with the remarkable 

 : that the microsporangium is derived from the periblem. To 

 ^er is credited the statement that in Naias the sporangium 



1 the plerome — a 



emarked, he 



did not make. There seems to be a curious confusion in the authors 

 minds between the terms "sporangium" and "sporogenous tissue." 



We cannot accept the view here set forth, that the microsporangium 

 in the Angiosperms is an endogenous structure. The author seems 

 to have in mind the obsolete theory of the imbedding of an originally 

 superficial structure, a view which is directly contrary to the conclu- 

 sions of the most recent studies on the development of the sporan- 

 gium. It is now pretty generally admitted that the eusporangiate 

 type, such as that of the angiosperms is the more primitive form of 

 sporangium, and the authors themselves assume the origin of the 

 angiosperms from some form of eusporangiate pteridophyte. The 

 close resemblances in the development of the sporangia bet\\ 



and the angiosperms are familiar to every c 



I has made ? 



direct st.idv of the subject. We do not believe that the ass 

 difference in the origin of the archesporium is so fundamental : 



i strange that the most importa 



; years, beai 



I development of the sporangium should be qu 

 ignored. It seems hardly possible that the authors are r 



