88 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



negative ; the best positive evidences of disappearance are the existence 

 in peat-bogs, etc., of the remains of species not now inhabiting a coun- 



try. 



MugJi 



now found in the bogs of Ireland, of Pinus Picea and Corahs Avellana 

 in the Shetland, and of Betula alba in the Faroe Islands.* 



{To be continued.) 



familiar account of 



of 



and geological distribution, History^ Properties^ and Uses^ and a com- 

 plete list of all the Species introduced into our Gardens, Eoyal IGmo- 

 With coloured Plates. London, 1855. 



This is another contribution to Mr. Lovell Keeve's " Popular Series 

 of Scientific Works;" and this particular subject could not have been 

 put into better hands than those of Dr. Seemann, who may be said to 

 have spent a great part of his life among Palms. As a school-boy 

 (" one of fifty unruly ones, who needed a cane to keep them in 

 order"), his first botanical lesson was derived from a Palm of the " 

 cane or rattan kind. These implements of punishment were abstracted 

 from the master's custody whenever an opportunity offered, cut up 

 into lengths by these young gentlemen, and used for smoking instead 

 of cigars ; but the stock in hand increased in the school-room, and some 

 pupils, more curious than the rest, were induced to inquire where they 

 came from, and of what plant they were the product. A CyclopEedia 

 supplied the needful information, viz. that these canes were the stems 

 of a slender East Indian Palm, a CalamuSy and much used for making 

 chairs and walking-sticks. At a more advanced period our author 

 studied Palms in the hothouses of Germany, of Kew, and, latterly, on 

 a more extended scale in the tropics of Asia and America. 



The general plan of the work is similar to that of ' The Palm-trees 

 of the Amazon, and their Uses,' by Wallace, noticed in our Journal, 

 vol. vi. p. 61 ; but it is of course on a more extended scale, and confined 

 to no particular region of the globe. But we do marvel to find that 



\^A '^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^y ^^ ^M^di, as more local examples, the Yews and Oaks found im- 

 bedded m the fens of Cambridgeshire, aud a peculiar form of Tohjporus fomentariits 

 tonnrf on the Oak, of which a notice, by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, has been read before 

 the i-inmean Society of London (in February, 1856).— Ed 



