Mathematische und mikroskopisch-anatomische Studien über Blattstellungen

THE subject of Phyllotaxis, which formerly involved the study of the arrangement, though now more particularly the mode of origin, of the lateral members of a plant-shoot, since it was first placed on a scientific footing by Bonnet in 1754, has afforded one of the most fascinating branches of botany, and, it must be frankly admitted, one which is very inadequately treated in text-books; this being again the expression of the fact that the more that is known with regard to it, the more complex do its problems appear, and the more hopeless of final solution. The subject, again, possesses possibly a special interest in that it is strictly non-utilitarian, and remains a field of abstract scientific work dealing with some of the most fundamental questions of protoplasmic life, which attain but little emphasis in the animal kingdom, owing to the restricted output of systems of ramification and appendage-production in the more condensed type of animal-organisation. The literature of the subject is, however, very voluminous, and slowly increases, the present volume of Iterson being the only important contribution since the loss of Schumann, and the publication of some of the work of Church (1901).Mathematische und mikroskopisch-anatomische Studien über Blattstellungen.By Dr. G. van Iterson Jun. Pp. xii + 331 + plates. (Jena: G. Fischer, 1907.) Price 20 marks.