NOTES AND COMMENT 



A series of lectures delivered at the University of London in 1911 has 

 just been published, with several additions, under the title Makers of 

 British Botany (Cambridge, University Press). The volume is edited 

 by Professor Oliver, and the seventeen lectures are contributed by as 

 many of the living leaders of botany in Great Britain. The several 

 biographies form an excellent panorama of the activities of British 

 botanists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a period which 

 was most auspiciously opened by the work of Ray in taxonomy. Grew 

 in anatomy, and Hales in physiology. The editor and several of the 

 contributors allude to the barren period which followed the death of 

 Ray and Grew, and to the completeness with which botanists were 

 absorbed in systematic work for nearly a century after the activity of 

 Linneaus. The growth and exploration of the colonial empire of Great 

 Britain yielded such an enormous bulk of new and interesting plants 

 that the subversive advances in the science which were being made on 

 the continent found only a tardy reception in England, and were con- 

 spicuously participated in only by Robert Brown. The important work 

 in morphology, anatomy, and paleobotany that has distinguished Brit- 

 ish botany in more recent years is foreshadowed in the lives of William- 

 son aud Marshall Ward, but its principal exponents are not within 

 the scope of this volume. The lectures treat not only of such well known 

 men as the Edinburgh professors, the Hookers, Henslow, Henfrey, and 

 Gilbert, but of several less known men, including John Hill, an early 

 taxonomist of the sterile period, William Griffith, a contributor to the 

 morphology of tropical plants, and WiUiam Harvey, the algologist. 

 Darwin has been intentionally omitted from the series, and the gigantic 

 labors of George Bentham have been passed by. 



Mr. Charles H. Thompson, of the Missouri Botanical Garden, has 

 recently written a short treatment of the culture and decorative value 

 of cacti (Bur. PI. Ind., Bull. 262). He has described the most success- 

 ful methods for their propagation from seeds or cuttings, and has given 

 full directions for the care of adult plants. The numerous illustrations 

 of handsome cacti and of striking decorative effects secured by their 

 use in outdoor beds will be sure to attract many new enthusiasts to 

 the cultivation of these plants. 



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