Abstract
IT is not evident whether the author intends this book as a contribution to the subject of “nature-study,” which is now attracting so much attention. Certainly the first and most essential feature of nature-study, namely, personal observation, is not emphasised, nor is the discursive style which the author adopts calculated to induce careful and accurate investigation. A large mass of information has been brought together, compiled from books on bionomics and original papers. The book begins with the flower and fruit, and the vegetative portions follow, an arrangement which has its advantages since morphology is sacrificed to bionomics. The relations between animals and plants are well brought out, but less prominently so the relations between plants inter se.The study of plant associations begins with the Cryptogams, and here, as indeed in most of the chapters, the matter is too fragmentary only occasionally, as, for instance, in the chapters ori seaweeds or when describing the lichens, does Mr. Scott Elliot take the necessary space· to do justice to himself and his subject. The concluding chapters dealing with the origin and development of the English flora introduce a subject which is well worth studying.
Nature Studies (Plant Life).
By G. F. Scott Elliot. Pp. viii + 352. (London: Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1903.) Price 3s. 6d.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nature Studies (Plant Life). Nature 67, 486 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067486a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067486a0