BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



The Living Plant. — If anj'thing can justify ignoring the first sen- 

 tence of Professor Ganong's newest book, The Living Plant, ^ perhaps 

 an admiring friendship of twenty-five years may. This book, though 

 not intended for "botanical colleagues," cannot fail to interest plant 

 physiologists at least, and it may well receive the attention of colleagues 

 of other botanical brands. 



The buoyant style in which the book is written gives double testi- 

 mony, first of confidence in an interested body of readers, and second 

 of enthusiasm in the subject. Few enjoy both in equal measure. The 

 purpose of the book is so to dispense information as to whet the appe- 

 tite of the intelligent reader. This information, made up of the facts 

 accumulated by many students of plants, is based on certain assump- 

 tions, on a certain genial philosophy of nature, in accordance with 

 which the facts are interpreted. Some of these assumptions are clearly 

 stated by Ganong in his first chapter, "The various ways in which 

 plants appeal to the interests and mind of man;" but others are made 

 so automatically as to be unconscious. Conceding this philosophy, the 

 book is clear and logical in its treatment of the facts of nature. We 

 may be curious about "The prevalence of green color in plants, and 

 the reason why it exists" (Chapter II), but we cannot all be perma- 

 nently satisfied with the striking 'answer that "the greenness of vege- 

 tation is simply the wastage of that part of the white light of the sun 

 which is not needed in photosynthesis." We know that food is made 

 photosynthetically by most plants, but photosynthesis is not the only 

 conceivable means of making food, nor is its course so well understood 

 that we can see why it is the prevalent means. In this same chapter, 

 however, is a capital discussion of the so-called autumn coloring for 

 which the northern and northeastern states are so justly famed. 



The chapters next following discuss subjects with which Ganong has 

 gained familiarity during many years of successful teaching. His exper- 

 imental demonstrations and the apparatus known by his name attest 

 his accomplishments. These pages treat the usual subjects of the plant 



'Ganong, W. F., The Living Plant. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 

 1913. 



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