PLANTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.*
THERE is a wide gap between the Bennettitem of the lower Mezozoic rocks and the Ranunculacez of the high Alps. But some day, perhaps, botanists will have worked out the con- nexion. Fossil botany is such a repulsive subject that many are deterred from making acquaintance with it. Yet even a smattering will open a new world of interest. Those who proceed further know well enough that the fossil remains of any vascular cryptogams are as delightful to them as, let us say, roses and orchids to the ignorant. The difficulty is to make a beginning. Miss Marie C. Stopes's Ancient Plants is intended for• those who have bad little or no technical training. Some general knowledge of botany is of course needed. Great discoveries have been made about fossil plants within the last ten, or even five, years, and Miss Scopes is well abreast of the latest of them. The short bibliography she gives will be useful. The second volume of Seward's Fossil Plants appeared no doubt too late to be included. Her account of the minute structure of fossil plants is plainly written, and the illustrations are numerous and clear•. They are well designed to exhibit the point under• consideration. To each is appended a short and lucid explanation. Par- ticularly well designed are the more or less diagrammatic figures showing the types of cells, spores, and the evolution of seeds. All this is very elementary, but it is well ex- plained. Any one reading Miss Stopes's book carefully would acquire much superficial knowledge and would learn many wise generalisations. Whether they would have as good a grounding as would be obtained by mastering a text-book which treated fossil plants on the " type-system " may be doubted. Passing from elementary facts to deeper• problems, the reader will find controversial points stated in a simple and impartial fashion. It may be news to some of our• readers that among paleo- botanists more furious and bitter controversies rage than among almost any other• group of biologists. We must take exception to one statement made by Miss Slopes, who boldly writes (p. 131) that the occurrence of fossil impressions of fronds with sons or sporangia "are in themselves enough to prove the contention that true ferns existed in the Palmozoic • (1) Ancient Plants : being a Simple Account of the Past Vegetation of the Earth and the Recent Important Discoveries Made in this Realm of Nature Study. By Marie C. Stones, D.Sc., Ph.D., F.L.S. London Blackie and Son. L4s. 6,1 net.1—(2) Alpine Flowers and Gardens. Painted and Described by G. Flemwell London: A. and C. Black. [7s. Gd. net.] epoch." Now it is notorious that the microsporangia of seed- bearing Pteridosperms, which are not true ferns, are so similar to the sporangia of true ferns that they cannot possibly be told apart. A question which a dozen specialists all over Europe have been trying to solve during the last few years cannot be so easily disposed of. The nine chapters on the past histories of the various groups of plants from the Angiosperms to Sphenophyllales give a general survey of plants, living and extinct, which is certainly comprehensive, though of course not detailed. It is easy to appreciate the great difficulties which Miss Stopes must have met, but we believe that she has no cause " to await with fear and trembling the criticisms of specialists."
We turn to a gayer side of the plant world. It is needless to dwell on the attractions of Alpine plants. In Alpine Flowers and Gardens Mr. G. Flemwell has produced a delightful book. He has managed to write a long rhapsody on the Alpine flora without becoming tiresome, which is a great feat. He describes, and exclaims with delight at the beauty of what he is describing, and the reader willingly joins in. He begins by asserting, what we all know, that most of us go to the Alps too late in the season to see the flowers. Yet we cannot all take our holiday in May and June. The average strenuous mountaineer cares very little as a rule for botany. The late Sir Leslie Stephen wrote a long book about the Alps and only once mentions the wonderful flora. He observes that it is pleasant to lie on a bed of rhododendron and look up to a mountain-top ! Yet to many of us the Alps without the plant life would be nothing. Mr. Flemwell describes three gardens in the Alps established by those who are doing their utmost, we believe with some success, to save the rare plants from extermination. Active in this work is M. Correvon of Geneva, who writes a preface to the present volume. The first garden is the " Thomasia " above Bea in the Rhone Valley; the second is the " Rambertia," nearly seven thousand feet high above Montreux ; the last, oldest, and most scientific is the "Linnea " above the Great St. Bernard Road, where three thousand different species or varieties are grown. A visit to any of these will be lively in the recollection of any lover of alpines. But Mr. Flemwell's book would be nothing out of the way without the twenty water-colour illustrations. We have seldom seen anything which conveyed so vividly the beauty of the Alps and the richness of the flora. The atmosphere is clear ; the colours clean; the plants naturally drawn ; and the mountain background stupendous. It is hard to select the best, but the meadows covered with Primula farinosa, oxlip, and marsh marigold, with the snowy Argentine rock-peak in the background, is beautiful. Very close to it comes the picture of thistles, Anthyllis, and the Apollo butterfly in September with the Aiguille du Tour behind. We recommend one of Mr. Flem- well's stories to the attention of all lovers of " alpine gardens." A Japanese gardener was shown over a " Japanese garden" in England. His praise was unbounded. "It is wonderful ! Marvellous ! We have nothing like it."
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