THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



119 



rather technical and not very attractive language. The book 

 ends with other chapters on kinship and adaptation and various 

 life histories of the lower orders of plant life. There are also 

 some twenty pages of technical data regarding the structure 

 and arrangement of various flowers. A curious survival of 

 the old herbarium-making and flower analyzing ideas is seen 

 in the important place given to the taxonomic side of the 

 subject. This is out of all proportion to the space devoted 

 to the structure and life processes of plants — subjects which 

 the concensus of opinion seems to indicate are more worthy 

 of study in school, at least. We should be inclined to say 

 that the book will be of more value to the teacher and general 

 reader than when used as a text book. It is profusely illus- 

 trated, there being nearly four hundred cuts in all, but many 

 of these are stock cuts or illustrations copied from other books 

 and frequently lack the life-like appearance of more recent 

 illustrations, though all are sufficiently clear to be useful. The 

 book is published by Henry Holt & Co., New York. 



The interest in irises seems to be growing, a sure indica- 

 tion that intelligent gardening is looking up in this country. 

 Probably the last word in irises for many a day has recently 

 been spoken in a book by W. Rickatson Dykes which costs 

 nearly forty dollars. This price puts it at once beyond the 

 reach of most botanists. They will have to be content with 

 occasional peeps into the book in some of the big libraries, 

 but for home use, a little book by the same author will serve 

 every purpose. This book is entitled simply 'Trises" and 

 therefore does not pretend to be a complete iris manual, but 

 it discusses in an entertaining way, first, the Iris genus as a 

 whole and then the various ''sections" into which iris fanciers 

 divide the species. Then come chapters on irises for special 

 positions, in rock gardens, herbaceous borders and the like. 

 The cultivation of irises and the problems connected with 

 their growth also receive attention and the book ends with a 



