FLOWERING PLANTS AND VEGETATION. C. J
Lyon. (Planographed, published by the author. 236 pp.)
In the present volume Professor Lyon covers the main subjects found in the usual elementary textbook of botany. The book is of convenient size, well bound, and by the inclusion in the text of numerous excellent photographs in half-tone (made possible by the planograph process) the author has to a large degree overcome the anaesthetizing properties inherent in any type-written book, no matter how interesting its contents.
Chapter one contains a brief resume of the main groups of plants and includes brief statements of the number of species, form, size, habitat, life history, new evolutionary features, special features, typical forms and the economic importance of each of these. There then follows an expanded and fairly comprehensive treatment of the main morphological and physiological features of the flowering plants together with chapters on ecology, distribution, the vegetation of the United States, arctic and alpine vegetation, weeds, and nomenclature. The subject matter of these chapters is enlivened throughout by the introduction of familiar and timely examples to illustrate obscure and often difficult points and is replete with an incredible amount of gardening and horticultural lore. The style is easy, conversational, not too pedantic, and singularly free from typographical and grammatical errors.
Presentation of the information is good and the facts, with the exception of one or two insignificant instances, are correct. Occasionally, however, carelessness in the organization of the material is evident. For example, on page 65 the following occurs: "In general there is an optimum temperature for each seed, another temperature (minimum) below which it will not germinate and another (the maximum temperature) above which some controlling process is inhibited. For corn these temperatures are approximately 46° F„ 93° F„ and Ixl° F. while for rye the corresponding degrees are 34, 77 and 86." Since these temperatures are not designated "maximum" "minimum" or "optimum," the reader reasonably concludes that they are given in the same order as in the previous sentence, i.e., optimum, minimum and maximum. Thus corn would possess an optimum temperature of 46 F., a minimum temperature of 92° F. and a maximum of 111° F., only the last of which is correct.
In the summary of the plant kingdom given in the first chapter, it would not have seemed amiss to have departed from the time honored custom of elementary textbooks and to have included in the main groups of algae the now well established Chrysophyceae or "Golden-brown" series. Further, the addition of some sort of introductory chapter or preface to explain the purpose and scope of the volume would have been highly desirable.
Concluding with a consideration of the book as a whole, one cannot but admire the manner in which the author welds the blocks of his chapters into a single unit and creates a running account of his subject. Professor Lyon has added a useful and interesting volume to the swelling ranks of textbooks of elementary botany.
An article "An American Speaks for Home Rule" by Professor Herbert F. West, appeared in the Scotts Independent for October.
Dr. Ralph E. Miller is the author of "The Secondary Nodules of Lymph Nodes, Their Relation to Chronic Inflammatory Processes" reprinted from the Archives ofPathology for March, 1932; and "The Secondary Nodules of Lymphatic Tissue: Their Relation to Immunity" reprinted from the New England Journal of Medicine for September 21, 1933.
