THE EVOLUTION OF PLANT LIFE.

LOWER FORMS.

By G. Massee. (University Extension .Series.)

liondon : Methuen and Co.

Dunedin: R

J. Stark and Co. 3s 6d. ■Reviewed bt Dixobnis.

Only the other day, in these columns, and an those of the Otago Daily Times, I had the pleasure of reviewing Principal D. Hird's '"Easy Outline of Evolution." At the end oi that admirable book is given a list of other books suitable for readers wishing to gain wide acquaintance with the literature of evolution. It is something of a coincidence that the very next volume «ent to me by a London publisher should prove to be one of those recommended by Mr Hird. Mr Massee's book, however, is very welcome, for its own sake as a worthy addition to matter-of-fact annals. It is devoted to the elucidation of certain phenomena, many of' which seem very obscure to most of us. The lower forms of plant life abound in New Zealand — a land of ferns, and ferns, as everyone knows, exhibit the highest development known in the great group of non-flowering plants. ' Mr 'Massee's subjects include all tho groups of vegetative organisms,, from protophyta up to mosses, ferns, etc. In his opening chapter, "General Ideas of Plant Life," he deals with all general and particular aspects of life, growth, reproduction, chemical and physical factors, food, moisture, temperature, light, protective organs, the cell, etc., in a very able and informative way. An encyclopaedia of knowledge of the more abstruse and most needful to be known facts of plant life is here condensed into some 80 pages. In his closing chapters, the author has something to say about pines and firs, plants which are perhaps to be looked upon as suggestive of connecting links between flowerless and flowering plants. Between the ferns, the club mosses, and the lordly ipines the difference is less wide than we are apt to imagine. About the means and method of reproduction in all these tnere is a good deal of similarity, and it is according to this canon that classification of the vegetable kingdom is arranged. But it is when we go back many steps from the •stage of evolution which exhibits pines and ferns that we find ourselves in a plant •world which seems largely made up of contradictions. Mysterious as is the strange process by which the fern develops from its spore (and that is most lucidly described and clearly illustrated in the present work), it seems almost commonplace beside the strange life-histories of plants that roam about as freely as most animals, 'and much more freely than many such. When, we get among plants of this unvegetative kind, and retrace their lines of development backwards, we soon get to that point where plant and animal forms meet and become merged in a life-stem that forms the common starting point of both sub-kingdoms. The lowly organisms, if such they can be called, that represent the primordial stem of the widespreading tree of life, are not definitely plant or animal. But it is now very generally admitted by biolosrists that from just such formless specs of naked protoplasm all the more or less highly-developed species that exist, or Lave existed have been evolved. By a series of slow changes extending over a long period of time, the two groups of ancestral organisms have journeyed on to their present stage of development. "The ■weight of evidence does not support the idea that plants and animals have for all time existed as such, tho relationship between ihe two being shown only in the common manifestation of life ; but rather that from a common starting point of life the specialities of plants and animals have been evolved, the* individuality of each frroup becoming more and more emphasised the further it recedes from the starting point." This is the evolutionary view, and practically the only interpretation of living nature that obtains credence at the present time.

The fact remains, however, that of those •who accept this view of organic nature, comparatively few are well acquainted with the actual evidence upon which it rests. This. I think, is especially tiue in resrard to the evidences furnished from plant life. If true, it is not as it should be, for plants are much more easy of approach as subjects of study than are animals. About the hieher plants and the wonders of their evolutionary relationship many {rood books Jiave been published. Of the lower forms and their marvellous life-histories, the <same cannot be said, the great text books being practically written in an unknown tongue — T>v specialists for specialist". But now that Mr Mnssee's excellent little book is available, this bar to a clear knowledge of a remarkable and profoundly interesting trroup of living beings is removed for good. For those ?rho have the enterprise to use a tolerable microscope and the few simple appliances required for the purpose, the book will be found a trustworthy guide in many a pleasant and instructive journey throuch the world of flowerless plants. Written, as it is. for the use of uni veryty extension .students, it is eminently fitted to be of great service to many who have never set foot within a university classroom. A anattcr-of-fnet treatise, setting forth in scientifically precise language the demonstrated facts of plant structure and plant evolution, dealing ably .and ou?te lucidly ■with major and minor generalisations cognate to the subject, illustrated in first-rate style, and well ordered in every way, it should prove a helpful aid to those who ■work, and a source of pleasant and profitable information for those who merely read.

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