Abstract
THE first volume of this work, dealing with histology anatomy, and physiology, was noticed in NATURE, vol. xlvi. p. 610, where some facts may be found connected with its history, scope, and arrangement. The present volume is concerned with general morphology and special morphology, or classification. It is, on the whole, exceedingly well compiled, and, as was said of the first volume, it is written in the clearest and easiest style, with no superabundance of words, such as often render German text-books unnecessarily difficult to the beginner. The illustrations (upwards of 400) are for the greater part borrowed from the works of Sachs, Gœbel, Schenk, Prantl, Pringsheim, Hanstein, Schimper, Strassburger, Hofmeister, De Bary, Tulasne, Bornet, Brefeld, Woronin, and other specialists, but chiefly from the first. These are all duly acknowledged, and, as the author states in his preface to the first volume, he has made the best selection he could, and he has used these familiar figures because he could not substitute better ones. This is, of course, true; yet we put it on record to inform the student that he will find little that is original in this way. General morphology occupies fifty-four pages, under four heads, namely: discrimination of forms in the vegetable kingdom, directions of growth, general laws of the relative positions of the members of the vegetable body, and origin of the members of the vegetable body. The remainder of the volume is devoted to special morphology, or systematic botany; but the large groups are somewhat unequally treated, 179 pages being devoted to cryptogams, as against 140 to phanerogams. Indeed, too much has been attempted in the space. For instance, the very brief diagonses of the natural orders given at the end of this volume can be of little service to the beginner. Few of them exceed six lines, and many of them are even less, consequently the characters given are often insufficient to include half of the genera. Generally speaking, they are correct as far as they go, but they are often not sufficiently comprehensive. We have said that this is an excellent book, yet here and there one stumbles upon statements that cause no little surprise. Thus the pictures of Nepenthes, Sarracenia, and Cephalotus are described indiscriminately as transformed terminations of tendril-like continuations of the leaves. Then with regard to the bibliography, the selections are by no means critical, and sometimes defective, especially in foreign literature. The indexes, of which there are three, are sufficiently copious. There is an index to the woodcuts, an index to the subjects, and an index to the plant-names. When will authors learn that one general index is preferable to a number of classified references? In this work it would have been much more convenient to have had an index to each volume.
Lehrbuch der Botanik nach dem gegenwärtigen Stand der Wissenschaft
Bearbeitet von Dr. A. B. Frank. Zweiter Band: Allgemeine und Specielle Morphologie. 8vo, 431 pp. with 417 Woodcut Figures in the text, and an Index to Volumes I. and II. (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1893.)
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Lehrbuch der Botanik nach dem gegenwärtigen Stand der Wissenschaft. Nature 48, 612 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/048612a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/048612a0