Abstract
AN author who does not write a book to order chooses his own subject matter and has a perfect right to do so. In making his choice he is guided by certain considerations of which his own particular interests are likely to be among the more important. For this reason we cannot complain of the content of Prof. Reed's book. On the other hand we have every reason to feel aggrieved at the title he has selected, for it must give the prospective reader a very wrong idea of what he will find between its covers. For what are we to think of a history of the plant sciences which deliberately excludes any account of the development of plant genetics and fossil botany, or of systematic botany after the eighteenth and plant geography and ecology after the nineteenth centuries, and in which the only aspect of physiology considered is metabolism?
A Short History of the Plant Sciences
By Prof. Howard S. Reed. (A New Series of Plant Science Books, Vol. 7.) Pp. x + 320. (Waltham, Mass.: The Chronica Botanica Co.; London: William Dawson and Sons, Ltd., 1942.) 5 dollars.
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STILES, W. A Short History of the Plant Sciences. Nature 150, 672–673 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150672a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150672a0