Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/258

Zdb BOTANIKEB-ADRESSBUCH. practical work, the common indigenous plants, such a plan heavily discounts the use of the book in a country where those plants are neither indigenous nor common. As, moreover, the scientific names are almost invariably omitted, the student and teacher alike may be puzzled by the first line of the first chapter where the injunction to germinate squash-seeds is given. The four o'clock seed, beggar's ticks, and the like, will prove to be additional stumbling-blocks. It is therefore impossible to recommend the book for use in this country. The author has made a happy combination of theory and practice. Innumerable simple experiments are suggested through- out, by working out which the student gradually acquires a fair elementary knowledge of the structure and functions of the seed- plant and its parts. The book begins with the seed and its germination, and the learner is led from the seedling to the adult plant with its root, stem, buds, leaves, and flowers ; fertilization of the latter and the formation of fruit bring him back to the starting- point, the seed. Then follows a useful chapter on the struggle for existence, in which we learn, among other things, that if a single morning-glory were only allowed a free hand in multiplication, there would result in the seventh year 729,000,000,000,000,000,000 plants. About twenty-five pages are given to the study of some types of flowerless plants ; while the second part constitutes a small flora, including the commoner seed-plants which are likely to be in flower in the Eastern United States at the time of year when the book will be in use. A. B. R. Botaniker-Adressbuch. Sammlung von Namen und Adressen der leben- den Botaniker aller Lander, der hotanischen Garten und der die Botanik pjiegenden Institute, Gesellschaften und periodischen Puhlicationen. Herausgegeben von J. Dorfler. Wien, 1896. 8vo, pp. xii, 292. Books of this kind, even when incomplete, are useful ; and Herr Dorfler' s Botaniker-Adressbuch cannot be said to err on the side of incompleteness. It will probably surprise our readers to know that we have more than 380 botanists in the United Kingdom ; but the gratification which such news imparts is modified by the fact that the claims of many to be included in the list are not very apparent. Excluding those who are no longer with us, such as Mr. Blomefield and Dr. Buchanan White, and subtracting the names of scientific booksellers, presidents of local societies, horticulturists, gardeners, Kew foremen and clerks, there still remain a large number who here appear for the first time in a list of botanists. Full as it is, however, the enumeration might be extended : Mr. James Groves, Mr. G. S. West, and Mr. J. B. Carruthers, for example, find no place in it. The occupations and qualifications of those included are various and at times puzzling. Mr. Alfred Ackroyd, for instance, whose