Plant Physiology

Abstract

A COMPREHENSIVE text-book on plant physiology has been lacking for too great a length of time, in view of the ever-increasing demand for well-trained botanists at home and especially in the Empire overseas. This demand for botanists and other biologists has gone unsatisfied for several years now, especially during the post-War years; but it is regrettable that, apart from a very few outstanding university and other departments, little attempt has been made to meet the situation. Sir Arthur Hill, in the report of the Third Imperial Botanical Conference held in London on August 28-30, 1935, shows that the authorities at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and also certain of the British Empire Governments, recognise this need for betterment in the tra ning facilities offered to budding botanists. But naturally the changes that they suggest can only affect those young botanists who have already been through their preliminary academic training (see NATURE, Feb. 15, p. 268). Increased facilities for such preliminary training, and profound improvements in those already established, are sorely needed, especially in the universities, if the right type of man and woman is to be attracted to botany as a profession. The prospects for any ambitious candidate are good: but the opportunities for training, as compared with other branches of science, are gravely inadequate. The reasons are not far to seek, and one of them is the lack of text-books of the right type.

Plant Physiology

By Meirion Thomas. Pp. xii + 494. (London: J. and A. Churchill, Ltd., 1935.) 15s