Volume 31 – Issue 3 (Sep 1966)

Two years ago the Berkleys published a biography of the well-known pioneer of Virginia botany, John Clayton (1694-1773). They found that it was “impossible to investigate one John Clayton without encountering quite a number of others”. Often there was a problem in identifying the particular man involved in each case. One of the most noteworthy of the other bearers of the name was the Reverend John Clayton (1657-1725), who also lived in Virginia for a few years. He was apparently a distant relative of his botanical namesake.

This is a beautiful book, composed of twenty-four articles reprinted from the Scientific American, all dealing with the cell and its structure and function. The articles are arranged into “Chapters”, such as organelles, energetics, synthesis, division and differentiation, and these give the reader an organized approach. Well worth having for any biologist.

This little paperback is one of the “Selected Topics in Modern Biology” series by Reinhold Publishers. The author is well qualified to bring together the many ramifications of organismic control, which is homeostasis, or the steady state. Chapters on body temperature, body weight, respiration, hormones, etc., bring out the tremendous numbers of feedback mechanisms that keep the body in its normal condition. Well worth reading.

One of the Freeman Series of Books in Biology, this book has far more thought behind it than the casual observer might believe. Mr. Grobstein has approached the evolution of living things from the standpoint of “hindsight,” i.e., looking at the continuity of life as to where it is going, or why and how the processes of the past will lead us to a somewhat predictable future.

Even though many trees are quite well known at sight, their flowers are much less familiar than those of herbaceous plants found in gardens or woodlands. Professor Rogers realized this and for many years carefully photographed the flowers of the common trees of the eastern United States, publishing them in 1935 in a limited private printing. The supply lasted less than 5 years and the book has been out of print for a long time.

Rufus M. Reed by vocation is a registered professional engineer, but by avocation he is a lover of nature, living at the town of Lovely, Kentucky, where he has a lovely wild flower garden. He devotes much of his time to describing the beauties of nature by writing and lecturing. For the past ten years he has written a newspaper column “Wonders of the Great Outdoors,” published in local newspapers. Other essays, short stories and poems have been published in various places, including the book “Lyrics of Life and the Great Outdoors”, which appeared in 1953.

Volume 1 in a new series of German language monographs on the vegetation of the earth concerns the continent of North America and the Hawaiian Islands. In this work the region is divided into Realms: the Holarctic, the Neotropic, and the Palaeotropic (Hawaii).

This volume is somewhat misnamed, in that it should be called Ideas in Modern Zoology, being nineteen papers delivered at the XVI International Congress of Zoology. However, many of the ideas discussed (Genetics, Cell Biology, Evolution, etc.) apply equally well to, the botanical field, and certainly do give some of the most recent biological thought. The articles are written by specialists in the various fields, and are well illustrated and documented.

Designed to stimulate gifted students in undergraduate zoology. With the exception of one diagram referring to the light microscope, the manual is void of helping illustrations. Braungart states, “if the student can reproduce with his hand what he sees, he will not only understand it better but remember it more easily.” Independent thinking and performance are required.

This paper deals with the conifers, both native and introduced species, that are found growing in the Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. It is also the beginning of a semi-popular treatment of the vascular flora of the Park. The data and records presented here have come mostly from field work done by the author during the past few years and supplemented by collections and literature of other botanists who have worked with the flora of this area. Voucher specimens of all work have been deposited either in the herbarium of the U. S. National Arboretum in Washington, D. C., or in the herbarium at the Park headquarters.