Holmes' Botanical Note-Book, or Practical Guide to a Knowledge of Botany.

Abstract

FROM the author's experience at the Pharmaceutical Society, together with that gained during the time he held the lectureship at Westminster Hospital, he is likely to know pretty well the requirements of the students at the pharmaceutical and medical schools. It is not always, however, that a teacher, well acquainted though he may be with what is wanted by the students, is capable of providing the best material to supply those wants. In this note-book we think Mr. Holmes has succeeded in smoothing the path of the botanical course, often so uninteresting and consequently amounting to drudgery to many a student. The plan adopted of arranging one part so as to work in with another, or rather to lead up to it, is a good one. The aim has been, not to simplify terms, which has often been attempted with varying success, but to reduce as far as possible the difficulty always attending a clear understanding of the meaning of the terms, and indeed to simplify the whole system of teaching. “To this end,” the author says in his preface, “two charts of the natural orders are given, in which the diagnostic characters are reduced to a minimum, those which are most easily observed having been chosen as far as possible in preference to the more minute, while all the exceptions have been indicated in an appendix. It is hoped that Lin this way, the student being familiarised with all the exceptions likely to be met with in this country, some of the difficulties attending a practical study of botany will be removed.” The three diagrams of scarlet geranium, daisy and dandelion, and narcissus will be found very useful, as each part of the plant is very distinctly named on the plate itself and is furthermore minutely described in two and a half pages of letterpress. The glossary with the Latin terms accented will be a great help to a young beginner and the interleaving of this part is a good point. Altogether we think the book is very satisfactory. We should, however, have preferred to see the sixty schedules placed at the end of the book rather than in the middle. Placed where they are, one is led to suppose there is no further matter beyond them, which is not the case, the charts and a very useful “Floral Calendar” being placed at the end.

Holmes' Botanical Note-Book, or Practical Guide to a Knowledge of Botany.

By E. M. Holmes, Curator of the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, late Lecturer on Botany at Westminster Hospital. (London: Christy and Co., 1878.)