Book Reviews of publications related to botanical work in the Netherlands

This synoptic book apparently forms part of a series which has been edited by the Indian Science Congress Association in commemoration of its Golden Jubilee. The composition of the botanical part here reviewed was entrusted to the wellknown embryologist P. Maheshwari and to R. N. Kapil, apparently one of his pupils. As appears from the title, the contents cover a period of some 50 years, but special attention has been given to the last 25 years. Even though it is stated that intensive scientific research in India is hardly as old as that period, the material available appeared to be so overwhelming that “only the most important and significant aspects of Indian Botany” could be dealt with. Accordingly, the bibliography, though comprising no less than 817 references to over 300 authors—the vast majority Indian—is said to be “highly selective, representing no more than a fraction of the total literature of the country”. In the concluding “General Considerations” it is stated that fifty years ago only some 5 M.Sc. degrees in Botany were taken. This figure had risen to 25 in 1925, 61 in 1948, and 470(!) in 1961. Apart from a short “Introduction”, the book contains chapters on the following subjects: Algae, Fungi etc., Bryophytes, Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms, Taxonomy, Morphology and Anatomy, Embryology, Cytogenetics, Plant Breeding, Ecology, Physiology, and Palaeobotany. Each of these chapters is conveniently subdivided into paragraphs and covers 5 (Ecology) to 24 (Embryology) pages.