Plant Life

Abstract

THIS is a book which deserves the warmest welcome from all lovers of plants. To give a general and at the same time a full and accurate survey of the natural history of plants, is at the present time a task of immense difficulty, and one which very few botanists could undertake with any hope of success. The task is daily becoming more difficult, as new additions are made to the already huge accumulation of facts, while its efficient performance is now a matter of more importance than ever, if botany is to be saved from becoming a close science, for specialists only. It may be said at once that the author has done his work with remarkable success. The book is a large one; only the first volume is before us, and this contains 734 large octavo pages. Yet it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there is not a dull page from beginning to end of the bulky volume. On the other hand, inaccuracies are met with here and there, and some of these are serious, but the general excellence of the book is but little affected by these faults.

Pflanzenleben.

Von Anton Kerner von Marilaun. Erster Band. Gestalt und Leben der Pflanze. (Leipzig, 1887.)