BOTANY.

By Carl L. Wilson and WalterE. Loomis, with line drawings by HannahCroasdale. New York: Holt, Rinehart &Winston, 1962. 3rd Revised Edition. 573pp. $8.75.

Since the first edition of this text appeared in 1952, Botany has been in general use in introductory botany and in certain biology courses throughout much of the western world. Such widespread use is not only high praise for the book, but is also indicative of the magnitude of the influence this book has had on the teaching of biology in the more than 200 colleges and universities where it has been used during the past decade. Its general influence has been toward establishment of a reasonable balance between burgeoning biochemical and molecular detail, the proceeds of rapid research progress in these fields, and the less rapidly growing knowledge of structure and function at higher levels of organization.

To appreciate the importance of such a contribution at this time one must recognize that much of the most spectacular and rewarding progress in biology has been made in recent years at molecular levels by scientists, many of whom, strangely enough, have little background in biology. The result of this rapid and disparate growth has been the development of a "new biology," fundamental to the old, yet frequently grotesquely divorced from it. The third edition of Botany is an attempt to incorporate the important recent contributions of the "new biology" into the somewhat more enduring context of the "old biology" and is a vital contribution toward presentation of a current and balanced whole.

The emphasis used to present a coherent picture in the most recent edition, as in the previous editions, is on the importance of plants in human affairs, a theme which embodies the holistic approach to biology and which is an old and effective teaching technique. So thoroughly has this theme been pursued that I have heard voiced by a colleague in all seriousness that "this text leaves nothing for the teacher to say," a comment which substantiates not only the breadth of the text, but its currency and clarity as well.

The plan of the text is a most logical one, starting with a description of the science of botany, proceeding to the structure of plants, then to physiology, ecology, and finally to consideration of the evolution of plants. The writing is clear and the text is liberally illustrated throughout with photographs and with Hannah Croasdale's excellent line drawings, which have made a major contribution toward "leaving nothing for the teacher."

There seems little question that this third edition, incorporating the principal recent discoveries of molecular biology, as well as of genetics, paleontology and other fields, will continue to fill the important interpretive role in biology curricula which the two previous editions have filled for a decade.