Notices of Books and Papers. 
375 
DAS PFLANZENPHYSIOLOGISCHE PRAKTIKTJM : 
ANLEITUNG ZU PFL ANZENPH YSIOLO GISCHEN 
TJNTERSUCHUNGEN FtJR STUDIRENDE TJND 
LEHRER DER NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN : von 
Dr. W. DETMER, Professor an der Universitat Jena. 
Jena (Gustav Fischer), 1888. 
A ‘ Praktikum ’ or Laboratory course in the Physiology of Plants 
was undoubtedly needed, and Professor Detmer’s volume is well 
adapted to fill up this hiatus in the student’s library. The author has 
been in the habit of conducting a physiological class at Jena, and has 
thus had experience which enables him to put his material in a 
practical form. The book is not simply a laboratory guide, not a 
mere skeleton of categorical instruction, but contains a certain 
modicum of discussion and connecting matter, after the manner of 
lectures. 
The instructions to the student have the merit of being obviously 
taken from the ^author’s personal experience. This is of course 
indispensable in such a book ; but when, as in the present instance, 
the personal tone is strongly marked, the descriptions gain a vitality 
which is not only instructive and encouraging to the student, but also 
renders the author’s pages more readable to those who have not the 
means of working through the whole course. He is especially to be 
commended for the care with which he has given minute instructions 
in matters of manipulation. Thus, for instance, he gives a careful 
description of the best method of marking growing organs at equal 
intervals. Again, he attends to such minutiae as that the seeds of 
Vicia Faba should be sown with the micropyle downwards, whereas 
those of Phaseolus should have the cotyledons horizontal. Where so 
much is good we do not greatly care to point out what might be 
better. There is, however, a fault running more or less throughout 
the work, which might be amended in a future edition. The book is 
either too long or too short. His laudable desire to make the course 
complete, has led the author into a certain kind of incompleteness 
and want of balance. Detailed points which should have been 
omitted or more fully dealt with are treated in an incomplete manner, 
which cannot be commended. For instance, the section on the 
mechanical analysis of soil, with its details about the * Schlamm- 
cylinder,’ and the meshes of sieves, might well have been omitted. 
The space and time saved by such omissions might have been given 
