NOTICES OF BOOKS, 159 
before, Dr. Hooker’s own discoveries. They are arranged under eight 
sections, dependent upon such floral and pericarpical distinctions as 
could be made out in a genus so purely natural as ours is. The 
largest-flowered species of the genus are R. Dalhousie, Maddeni, and 
Aucklandii, the first of which, with pendulum, are shrubby epiphytes. 
Others, such as R. Falconeri, argenteum, and Hodgsonii, exceed all 
the rest in the grandeur of their foliage. One of the most strikingly 
beautiful is &. Thomsoni, on account of its large, blood-red clusters 
of flowers, and broad, almost orbicular, leaves ; named, in the words of 
the discoverer, after “Dr. Thomas Thomson, surgeon, H. E. I. C. S., 
late of the Thibetan Mission, son of the learned Professor of Chemistry 
of Glasgow University, my earliest friend and companion during my 
college life, and now my valued travelling companion in Eastern Hima- 
laya.” 2. pumilum is the smallest and rarest of the Sikkim species, 
but exceedingly charming; “its elegant flowers are produced soon 
after the snow has melted: and then its pretty pink bells are seen 
peeping above the surrounding short heath-like vegetation, reminding 
the botanist of those of Linnea borealis.” 
I cannot take leave of this work without expressing a hearty wish 
that Dr. Hooker, and his zealous travelling companion, Dr. Thomson, 
having recently returned in safety from their travels, may obtain 
every encouragement required for speedily and extensively publishing 
the vast treasures of their harvest. ——— 
N. Wazricx, M.D. 
Tropical Scenery: PHYSIOGNOMY or TROPICAL VEGETATION ; drawn 
and lithographed by M. Dx Brno. 
Humboldt, in his ‘Cosmos,’ has observed, that “he who is en- 
dowed with susceptibility for the natural beauties of mountains, 
streams, and forest scenery ; who has wandered through the countries | 
of the torrid zone, and has seen the luxuriant vegetation, not only = 
upon the cultivated shores, but in the vicinity of the snow-capped 
Andes, the Himalaya mountains, and the Neilgherry hills of the 
Mysore, or in the wide-spread forests between the Orinoco and the 
Amazon :—that man can alone understand what an immeasurable 
field for landscape-painting is open between the tropics of both conti- 
nents, or in the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines, and 
how the most splendid and spirited works which man’s genius has 
