Abstract
(1) MR.SCOTT ELLIOT has attempted an ambitious task, i.e. to give a popular and at the same time comprehensive account of modern botanical research. On the whole, he has been thoroughly successful, and has produced a readable book, which may well impress the layman or amateur botanist with the extent and scope of the botany of to-day. But (though this is perhaps inseparable from a work of this, kind) one is almost bewildered by the rapidity with which the scene changes from the polar regions to the tropics, or the subject under discussion from, e.g., the effect of electricity on plants to the origin of the. British flora. In the preface the author states that he is particularly interested in “open-air botany, the story of the conquest of the world by green vegetation,” and it is.when discussing topics of this kind that he appears at his best Such descriptions as that of the soil, with its manifold complexities of life and structure, or of a “Chroolepus Forest” are distinctly good, even if a trifle exaggerated. The chapters on bacteria, Arctic and Alpine floras, and the re-conquest of the water are amongst the best in the book. In a few cases, however, Mr. Elliot has attempted the impossible. Thus, in a chapter on the fern alliance, he condenses into three octavo pages an account of the alternation of generations, Bower's theory of the origin, of the fern sporophyte, the reduction of the gametophyte in flowering plants, and a description of the pteridosperms. The result can scarcely be other than to cause confusion in the 'mind of the non-botanist. In describing the growth of the living crust of mosses on the top of a sphagnum bog (p. 74), the author suggests that “these moss, plants may, for aught we know to the contrary, be the idenfical individuals which perhaps began to grow there at the close of the Glacial period.” This raises the interesting metaphysical problem of how far the conception of individuality is applicable to plants. Unfortunately, Mr. Elliot does not discuss the question, though he briefly refers to it again on p. 152. It is to be expected that some inaccuracies should creep into a book of this nature. A desire for brevity is probably responsible for the statement on p. 109 that the pollen grains of a flower are male sperm cells; while the somewhat astounding information (p. 132) that the leaves of Victoria Regia may be 60 feet across is, of course, a mere'slip, and not a traveller's tale. There are a number of beautiful photographs (chiefly of plants of economic, importance), some of which, however, seem to have little reference to the matters discussed in the text. Similarly, “The lurst Land Plants,” which is the title of chapter iii., scarcely describes its contents, which deal chiefly with soil and the nitrate supply of the vegetable world. One of the photographs is here reproduced..
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References
"Botany of To-day: a Popular Account of Recent Notable Discoveries". By G. F. Scott Elliot . Pp. 352. (London: Seeley and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 5s. net.
"The Book of Nature Study". Vol. v. Edited by Prof. J. B. Farmer . Pp. vii+224. (London: Caxton Publishing Co., n.d.)
"A Text-book of Botany for Students, with Directions for Practical Work". By Amy F. M. Johnson . Pp. viii+535. (London: All nan and Sons, Ltd., n.d) Price 7s. 6d.
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Recent Books on Botany 1 . Nature 84, 146–147 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/084146a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/084146a0