BOOK REVIEWS. 



437 



The second, by Dr. Scott, looks at the evohition of plants from the 

 geological point of view. This little book is a condensed account from 

 his two volumes on fossil plants, showing — as far as it is possible — 

 the probable line of evolution from cryptogams to flowering plants. 



Professor Warming's book is pure morphology, with descriptions 

 "of plant associations at the end. It has excellent illustrations. Though 

 this botanist has shown that adaptations are the direct result of response 

 to external conditions (in his Lagoa Santa and Oecology), it would have 

 been a valuable addition to have stated this as the cause of the morpho- 

 logical structures he describes. 



' ' Practical Plant Physiology " is an excellent manual full of 

 experiments easy to be made, and takes each organ, root, stem, leaves, 

 &c., in order. The authors, we are glad to see, urge that it is by 

 the response of plants to stimulations that structures arise. This is 

 the true basis of evolution. Thus they write: — "Under the influ- 

 ence of changed external conditions, the course of development of the 

 organs may undergo such modifications as fit them the better to carry 

 on their work in the new conditions." The process of evolution 

 could not be better or more accurately expressed. 



" British Plants." This is an attempt to give some account of 

 our flora on ecological lines, first dealing with the environment and its 

 influence upon vegetation, discussing water-plants, tropophytes, the 

 effects of light, heat, air, soil, &c. Then follows the classification 

 of plants according to their habits, as epiphytes, climbers, &c. 

 Speaking of external protective equipments, as prickles, &c., the 

 authors attribute them to natural selection ; but as spinescence 

 generally is only a result of drought, there is no need to call in 

 Darwin's theory. Though recognizing self-fertilization as frequent 

 and injurious, the devices are not for the ^prevention of self- but for 

 securing cross-pollination, when self-pollination, for the time, is ousted. 

 The only explanation of adaptation given is Darwinism and De Vries' 

 Mutation ; but what ecologists now k^iow is that they are the result 

 of response of the individual itself to changed conditions of life, as 

 stated in the above work on " Practical Plant Physiology." In describ- 

 ing sub-floras of England, the S. European types seen in Normandy, 

 the Channel Islands, and the South- West of England are omitted. On 

 the whole it is an interesting book, and ought to be a very useful volume. 



" The Life of Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Eoyal Society, 

 with some notices of his friends and contemporaries." By Edward 

 Smith, E.E.H.S., with a photogravure frontispiece and sixteen other 

 illustrations. 8vo., 348 pp. (Lane, London, 1911.) 12s. 6d. net. 



Sir Joseph Banks was born in 1743, and died in 1820. The 

 appearance of this valuable book ninety-one years after his decease 

 is accounted for by the fact that no account of this great man's per- 

 sonality had appeared. " A detailed life of this worthy man has 

 always been wanted." A great traveller and scientist, a worthy 

 Inquire and landlord, who took the deepest interest in horticulture and 



