The Gymnosperms is a well-illustrated comprehensive account of living and fossil plants of this group. Chapters 1 and 2 give a general account, and describe similarities and dissimilarities with pteridophytes and angiosperms. Chapter 3 deals with classification. The next 18 chapters (4-21) deal sequentially with fossil and living taxa. Phylogenetic relationships are considered for each order. Chapter 22 discusses the in vitro experimental studies on the growth, development and differentiation of vegetative and reproductive organs and tissues. Chapter 23 summarizes the economic importance of gymnosperms. Chapter 24 gives the conciuding remarks. Thus, there is a complete coverage of significant findings concerning morphology, anatomy, reproduction, development of embryo and seed, cytology, and -evolutionary trends and phylogeny. Ultrastructural and histochemical details are given wherever considered necessary. There is a comprehensive list of literature citations, and a plant index. This book is essentially meant for the postgraduate students in India and abroad. Undergraduate students can also use it profitably. The entire course should be taught in 25-30 lectures/hours and about 75 hours of field and laboratory work.

Reproductive Biology of Plants is a comparative account of reproduction in viruses, bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms, each chapter written by an expert in the field. Special emphasis is placed on the truly comparative approach illustrating the vast range from simplicity to complexity in structure and function with respect to the various organisms.

Thirty-four years have elapsed since the publication of the late Professor P. Maheshwari's text, An Introduction to the Embryology of Angiosperms, a work which for many years served as an invaluable guide for students and a rich source book for research workerso Various texts dealing with sections of the braad spectrum oftopics encompassed by Maheshwari in his book have appeared in the interim, but a compendious modem work dealing with the whole field has been lacking. This present volume splendidly meets the need, and it is altogether fitting that Professor B. M. lohri, long an associate and close colleague of Professor Maheshwari and himself a prolific contributor to the subject, should have undertaken the task of editing it. When Maheshwari wrote, it was stiIl feasible for one author to handIe the subject, but today even someone with his fine bread th of vision and depth of understanding could not, alone, do it justice. So the effort has to be a collaborative one; and Professor lohri's achievement has been to bring together a team of authoritative collaborators, assign them their responsibilities, and put them to work to produce a text as integrated in its treatment as the diversity of the subject would allow. The product vividly illustrates the advances that have been made in the study of angiosperm reproductive systems in the last 30 years, and the book is surely destined to become the new standard for student and researcher alike.

A long time ago botany used to be regarded as the scientia amabilis, the friendly science, eminently suitable for leisured amateurs. Since then, and particularly in this century, it has grown tremendously in its importance and in its intimate contacts with various other disciplines of science, some of which, like plant genetics and plant physiology, at one time indeed used to be included under the broad term botany. In spite of the fact that such subjects have expanded into major scientific fields of their own, botany, the mother science, continues to maintain its central place: this is because it deals with plants which constitute one of the most vital life-supporting systems of this planet. Furthermore, interacting and benefiting from advances made in other sciences, it has steadily progressed in a number of areas. Experimental embryology of vascular plants is one such field where spectacular advances have been made in recent years. The time is therefore particularly opportune for the publication of an authoritative book on the subject. It is very appropriate that the book has been planned and edited by Professor B. M. Johri, one of India's foremost botanists, whose contributions in embryology, plant morphology and morphogenesis are internationally known. He was closely associated over a number of years with Professor P. Maheshwari, the great botanist and embryologist, to whom the book is dedicated.