1898] SOME NEW Hooks L33 



occur in the district which comes in this position, i.e., in the above 

 case, the plant is absent in Lowland Perth, tsla, and Forth, as well as 

 in Gowrie. 



But in some cases there is also a short and much needed account 

 of the less known varieties, eg., THfoUum dvbivm, Sibth. var. 

 pygmaeurn Soy. -Will, is described as follows, "Dwarfer; petiole of 

 middle leaflet not longer than the lateral ones." These occasional 

 deviations from the plan are probably the most valuable part of the 

 book, and we wish there had been more of them. 



.Mr F. J. Hanbury has edited the Hieracia, Mr H. droves has 

 worked through the Characeae, and Messrs W. Barclay and H. Coates 

 have afforded Prof. Traill much assistance with those genera (Soli- 

 Festuca, etc.), which were not finished in the MS. Prof. Traill's 

 portion of the work must have been exceedingly difficult ; he has 

 however succeeded in presenting Dr Buchanan White's work in the 

 best form possible under the circumstances, and deserves congratula- 

 tion on the accomplishment. The map (by Bartholomew) is very 

 good, coloured according to altitudes of 50*0, 1000, 2000, and 3000 

 feet ; but is on far too small a scale for detailed work in the field. 



The Ferns of the Earth 



Die Farxkkauter dek Erde. Beschreibende Darstellung der Geschlechter und 

 wichtigeren Arten der Farnpflanzen mit besonderer Beriicksichtigmig der exoti- 

 schen. Von Dr H. Christ (Basel). 8vo, pp. xii + 3S8, with 292 figures. Jena: 

 Fischer, 1897. Price, 12 Marks. 



In this work Mr Fischer has added another useful book to his long- 

 list of botanical publications. Apart from their general life-history 

 the modern botanist knows next to nothing about ferns, and is often 

 fain to admit his ignorance of the names of the most commonly culti- 

 vated species. He knows Ptcris aqwilina, the bracken fern, but is sur- 

 prised to find that a fern which is used for decorative purposes, along 

 with one or more equally unknown palms, in most of the London 

 dairies, or in smaller editions as an ornament for the dinner table, 

 is congeneric. He will find Dr Christ's book very useful. It is not 

 a complete monograph, for such a work would require several volumes 

 of equal size to the one now before us, and it is therefore not intended 

 primarily for the specialist, but notwithstanding includes descriptions 

 of 1154 species belonging to 99 genera. If further information is 

 required, it can be found in one or other of the systematic works 

 of which the author gives a list at the beginning of his book, or of 

 the floras which follow arranged in geographical sequence. Under 

 the title 'Ferns' Dr Christ includes the so-called true Ferns or 

 Filicinae of Prantl which fall into two groups, namely, the Lepto- 

 sporangiatae, in which the spore-cases are derived from a single 

 (epidermal) layer of cells, and the smaller or Eusporangiatae where 

 several cell-layers are concerned. The first group contains the 

 Hymenophyllaceae, Polypodiaceae, Davalliaceae, Osmundaceae, Cyath- 

 eaceae (tree-ferns) and others, the second the two small families 

 Marattiaceae and Ophioglossaceae. The first part of the book (13 

 pages) is a brief systematic outline of the characters of the group> 

 and genera. The remainder, for min g Part II., is a more exhaustive 

 account of these and of the principal species, including all well-estab- 

 lished species, "which are in any way remarkable on account of 



