(1) Eléments de Botanique (2) Botany: A Text-book for Senior Students (3) Lowson's Text-book of Botany (Indian Edition)

Abstract

(1) THE latest edition of Prof. Ph. Van oL Tieghem's text-book, edited by Prof. J. Costantin, is arranged on the same plan as previous editions. A serious omission from the point of view of the bibliographer is the absence of any prefatory note or introduction. The first volume is described on the title-page as “revue et corrigée,” and the second as “remaniée et augmentee,” but there is no indication as to the extent or nature of the changes or additions by virtue of which the present edition may be regarded as an advance on earlier ones. A careful comparison of the table of contents and the text is therefore rendered necessary. There is very little change In the first volume—that dealing with general botany. The first five chapters deal respectively with the body of the plant as a whole, the root, stem, leaf, and flower—in each case treated under two sections: (1) form and structure, and (2) function. This treatment will probably not commend itself to teachers in this country at the present time, if only from the difficulty it involves in presenting an account of the physiology of the plant as a living whole. In the next four chapters an account is given of the life-history of the four great subdivisions of the plant kingdom—Seed-plants, Vascular Cryptogams, Mosses, and Thallophytes. The difference between the origin or products of germination of the spore in the fern and in the moss, as contrasted with each other and with the seed-plant, is emphasised by the use of special terms—the spore and sporangium of the fern are termed “diode” and “diodange,” those in the moss “tomies” and “tomiange,” the whole sporogonium of the moss being a “tomiogone.”

(1) Eléments de Botanique.

Par Prof. Ph. Van Tieghem. Tome i., "Botanique Générate." Cinquième édition, revue et corrigée par Prof. J. Costantin. Pp. xv + 619. Tome ii., "Botanique Spéciale." Cinquième édition, remaniée et augmentée par Prof. J. Costantin. Pp. xx + 743. (Paris: Masson et Cie, 1918.) Price 14 francs.

(2) Botany: A Text-book for Senior Students.

By D. Thoday. Second edition. Pp. xx + 524. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1919.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

(3) Lowson's Text-book of Botany (Indian Edition).

Revised and adapted by Birbal Sahni and M. Willis. With a preface by Dr. J. C. Willis. New and revised edition. Pp. xii + 610. (London: W. B. Clive, University Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1919.) Price 8s. 6d.