Our American text-books on Pharmaceutical Botany, (not “Pharmacal Botany,” as the author unhappily calls it, which would mean the Botany of the Pharmacy, or of the place in which pharmaceutics are practiced,) bears no evidence that any author has yet comprehended the needs of pharmaceutical students in this direction, or has adjusted his instruction so as to accomplish the object for which it was devised. The idea invariably indicated by the writings, even if not intended by the writers, is that as the application of botanical knowledge to the practice of the pharmacy is limited, its teachings may therefore be superficial, indefinite and vague. The true idea it seems to us is, that it should be curtailed and limited only as to the portions of the field covered; but these requisite portions should be taught with a fulness of illustration, a clearness of presentation and a simplicity of style, all the more marked because the student is deprived of the enlightening effect contributed in other cases by those portions which are here necessarily omitted. As a synopsis, or summary of knowledge, intended to guide the teacher instructed in the subject, these eighty-two pages will answer fairly well; but to enable a student who is proceeding _de novo_ to gain a knowledge of structural botany for the purposes of pharmacognosy, we can see nothing but failure. Herein we criticise the book, not specifically the author. Publishers’ books are not always authors’ books. It is doubtful if any publisher can be found willing to publish as a business enterprise, a perfect text-book of Botany for pharmaceutical students. When such appears, it will be as a labor of love, by one whose regard for the subject is such as to lead him to donate his time and labor, and whose means enable him to bear the burden of a financially unsuccessful enterprise.