Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/32

 23 NEW PUBLICATIONS.

(27.) Rapidity of ascent of fluid in plant (^) 8y'^ inches in seventy minutes in sun. The lithium was found all through the branch. Transpiration in the sun equal to 7 '5 8 per cent, per hour,

(28.) Rapidity of ascent of tluid {b) ^-^-^ inches in thirty minutes. Lithium citrate.

(29.) Ditto, (c) 5^. Thallium citrate.

(80.) Ditto, [d) (S^^. Lithium citrate.

(31.) Ditto, ip) 4y^^ inches in ten minutes. Lithium citrate.

In experiments d and a the lithium was not detected except in the stem, and not in the upper part of it. During these experiments, in which lithium was not found all over the branch, the transpiration was only equal to 4"53 per cent, per hour. — XL Influence of gases in transpiration. Experiments with atmospheric air, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen gave the following results : —

(32.) Transpiration of fluid in oxygen, one hour, sun, 12-77 per cent.

(33.) Ditto, atmospheric air, 7'5 per cent.

(34.) Ditto, carbon dioxide, 4"01 per cent.

(35.) Ditto, nitrogen, 1'97 per cent.

The bad weather and the lateness of the season terminated the experi- ments before several points of interest could be fully determined.

��A Manual of Slnictural Botanij. By M.C.Cooke. 12mo. Pp.123. London : Robert Hardwicke.

This new edition of a well-known little book, contains a very compen- dious and generally accurate account of all the terms used by descriptive botanists, and of a good many {e.fj. lycotropal) that are not used. As a classified glossary of existing and p;irtly obsolete botanical language, it will be found quite as usefid as more pretentious books. The earlier sec- tions contain an account of plant-chemistry, expressed with modern for- mula3, and a sufficient explanation of physiological terms. Unfortunately terminology is not knowledge, and the educational value of this book in teaching anything about plants themselves, seems but small. What are wanted to start science in schools are, cheap but accurate expositions of facts, like Huxley's 'Elementary Lessons in Physiology,' not mere collec- tions of dry-bones.

Mr. Cooke has not been very happy in his etymologies, though some of the worst of the previous edition have been suppressed. " A Phjtozoa" with its plural " phjtozoce'" (p. 97), are likely to bring scorn upon his labours from public schoolboys, on the priuci|)le of a ploughman's contempt for those who cannot plongh.

As an interesting episode, the account of the fertilization of a British plant (pp. 71, 72) may be quoted: — "The Rosebay Willow-herb, EpUo- biiim angastifoUiim, has a 4-lobed stigtna, supported on a style rather longer than the lilaments of the stamens. When the flower first opens, the lobes are closely applied together by their faces, and both style and

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