120 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



calendar of the dates on which the different species bloom. 

 It is issued by the F. A. Stokes Company, New York, and 

 costs seventy cents. 



Tn the preface to Dr. Wm. F. Ganong's ^'The Living 

 Plant," the author intimates that the book is not intended for 

 botanists, but after going through it pretty carefully we are 

 of the opinion that it ought to be, for it is an ideal presenta- 

 tion of the structure and functions of plants and, though 

 designed for beginners, is a book from which advanced stu- 

 dents can learn much, especially as to methods of expression. 

 The author not only has a clear and entertaining style but 

 ever seems to anticipate the difficulties of his readers, and the 

 book is full of ingenious ways of bringing out vividly the 

 salient features of the subject and fixing them in the memory. 

 The book also represents a unicjue line of attack in making 

 botany attractive to beginners in that it avoids the accepted 

 beginning with seeds and other dry material and plunges at 

 once into the subject of leaves and their activities. The whole 

 book thus grows naturally out of inquiries into other phases 

 of botany with which leaves are concerned. There are eigh- 

 teen chapters devoted to respiration, absorption, transpira- 

 tion, photosynthesis, and allied topics, though the author pre- 

 fers much longer titles for the chapters such as ''The Sub- 

 stance that is Alive in Plants and its many Remarkable Proper- 

 ties" for a discussion of protoplasm. Chapters on evolution, 

 plant breeding and classification complete the book, which is 

 an octavo of nearly 400 pages. There are a large number of 

 illustrations, mostly original and selected for the light they 

 throw on the text. The book is one of the volumes in the 

 American Nature Series published by Henry Holt & Co., New 

 York. 



