Monthly MIcroscoplcan 
Journal, July 1, 1869. J 
( 47 ) 
NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 
Vegetable Teratology. An Account of the Principal Deviations from the 
Usual Construction of Plants. By Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.L.S. 
Published for the Eay Society by E. Hardwicke. 1869.— Whether 
teratology can be profitably studied, to the exclusion of normal 
histological structure, is a question which we think must be an- 
swered in the negative. Therefore, though doubtless readers of 
Dr. Masters' work are supposed to be already familiar with struc- 
tural botany, we fear that the minute details of vegetable mor- 
phology requisite to a comprehension of the facts recorded by 
Dr. Masters are not familiar to many. For this reason, we 
fancy that save among the higher class of botanists this new 
book of the Kay Society's will not find many admirers. The 
author has spared no pains to chronicle examples of abnormal 
structure,, and the illustrations in his pages are both numerous 
and good. We think, too, that most persons will agree with the 
author's conclusion, that all monstrosities are not things sui 
generis, but are merely degrees of multiplication of normal 
arrangements of parts. But we certainly think it is to be re- 
gretted that the facts of normal development of plants were not 
worked into the text of Dr. Masters' treatise. Of what value are 
teratological facts if not to clear up our difficulties as to vegetable 
morphology? Yet from the omission of general plant anatomy 
and histology, the record of Dr. Masters, valuable as it is, loses 
much of its usefulness. It seems to us, too, that the author has 
employed the microscope to a smaller extent than the subject 
demands. We may, of course, be wrong in this ; but we are 
struck by the fact that many of the continental workers who 
have lately sought to determine the relation of the axial to the 
foliar organs have relied on the distribution of the vascular 
tissues, and have rested on this with advantage. Dr. Masters, 
however, gives us very little information on these points; and 
yet we should think that in many cases, where doubt must other- 
wise exist as to the source of an unusual structure, the microscope 
would be a sort of crucial test. However, it must in justice be 
stated that the author disposes of this difficulty by a proposition 
to which he nearly absolutely assents, viz. that there is no distinc- 
tion at all between axial and foliar elements. We believe it was 
Locke that quashed the argument between two metaphysicians, 
who disputed as to the attributes of the soul, by explaining that 
it was first requisite to prove the existence of such an entity. 
Dr. Masters places disputants of the Schleiden school in a similar 
predicament. This, however, is also a question in some measui'e 
for the microscopist, and we do not think that Dr. Masters has 
offered us any satisfactory testimony in regard to it. 
We are disposed to think that the author has not quite made 
up his own mind on this question of the existence of distinct 
elements, axial and foliar, or else we are at a loss to understand the 
