284 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
tiful and conspicuous of all the alpine flowers of Sikkim, if not of the 
whole Himalaya, at elevations of from 12—14,000 feet above the level 
of the sea. Tab. 9, Meconopsis Nipalensis, “ sometimes five feet high, 
scarcely less beautiful than the preceding:" flowers large, chrome-yellow, ` 
and very numerous upon the largeraceme. Tab. 10, Decaisnea insignis, & 
new Lardizabaleous genus, justly dedicated “to Professor Decaisne of 
- Paris, one of the most learned botanists of the present day, and the 
author of a monograph of the Natural Family to which the plant belongs, 
which is a model of sagacity in botanical investigation." We may add 
too, that the Professor is as estimable in private life as he is distin- 
guished for his botanical acumen. Tab. 11, Duabanga sonneratioides, — 
Ham.; a tree forty to eighty feet high, allied to Lagerstramia ; with 
large white flowers, unfortunately exhaling an assafcetid smell. Tab. 12 
exhibits a second species of Aucuba, 4. Himalaica: “one of the many 
striking cases of botanical affinity between the temperate Flora of the 
Himalaya, and especially of the Eastern Himalaya, and China and 
Japan, and which affinity is not shared by the Flora of Europe.” Six 
such genera are enumerated ; and nine are further mentioned as common 
also to North America. Tab. 14, Begonia gemmipara, is remarkable for 
the development of very peculiar gemmules in large cup-shaped recepta- 
cles from near the base of the leaf-stalks. Tab. 15 represents two 
splendid species of Vaccinium. Tab. 16, three charming climbers, 
most gracefully represented, Codonopsis gracilis, Javanica, and inflata. 
Tab. 17. A splendid scarlet schynanthus, Æ. Peelii. Tab. 18, 
—-Buddleia Colvilei “has no rival in the genus for beauty and graceful 
habit" Tab. 19, a glorious plate, representing Rheum nobile, the most 
singular of the many fine alpine plants of Sikkim. “I first saw it from 
the distance of a mile, dotting the black cliffs of the Lachen valley, at 
. 14,000 elevation, chiefly in inaccessible situations. They were upwards 
of a yard high, and formed pyramidal towers of the most delicate, straw- 
. coloured, shining, semitransparent, concave, imbricating, decurved 
~ bracts, the upper of which have pink edges; the large, bright glossy, 
shining green radical leaves, with red petioles and nerves, forming a 
broad base to the whole. On turning up the bracts, the beautiful 
membranous fragile pink stipules are seen, like red silver-paper, and 
within these again are the short branched panicles of insignificant green 
ers. In the winter, the dead, naked, black stems, projecting from 
ing cliffs, or towering above the snow, are in dismal keeping 
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