582 REVIEWS OF BOOKS. [Jan. 



Keviews of ^ooks. 



Studies of Plant Life in Geinada. By Mrs. C. P. Traill, Ottawa, 



Wooclburn. 



TO the loving student of nature, whether he be scientific or not, 

 this will prove a delightful book. It is an essentially popular 

 work, in which the jargon of science has been all but eschewed. 

 Yet it abounds in vivid pictures of the familiar plant life, — shrubs, 

 trees, flowers, and ferns of the vast prairies and forests of Canada. 

 Although written by a lady who has attained her fourscore years, 

 there is a charmingly fresh crispness and truth in the style in which 

 she unfolds her earlier and later experiences of the changes in plant 

 as well as man's life that have resulted from extending civilization 

 that arrests the attention and excites the admiration of the reader. 



There are a few chromo-lithograph illustrations wliich are not 

 in point of execution at all equal to the author's true and vigorous 

 delineations of the subjects illustrated. Believing our readers will 

 derive as much pleasure in the perusal of the following extract on 

 the hemlock as we ourselves have done, we give it at length : — 



" One of the loveliest and most graceful of our forest trees is a 

 young hemlock. As great a contrast does that elegant sapling, with 

 its gay, tender, green, feathery sprays, bear in its beauty of form 

 and colour to the parent tree, with its rugged, stiff, and unsightly 

 trunk and ragged top, as the young child in its youthful grace 

 and vigour bears to the old wrinkled grandsire. The foliage of the 

 young hemlock in the months of June and July, when the spring shoots 

 have perfected, is especially beautiful ; the tender vivid green of the 

 young shoots at the end of the flat bending branches of the previous 

 year appears more lively and refreshing to the eye in contrast to 

 the older dark glossy, more sombre foliage which they serve to 

 brighten and adorn. 



" The hemlock does not reach the lofty height of the white pine, 

 though in some situations it becomes a giant in size, with massive 

 trunk and thick, bushy head ; the bark is deeply rifted, dark on the 

 outside, but of a deep brick-red within ; the branches are flat ; the 

 small oval, soft cones appear later in the summer on the ends of the 

 shoots of the previous season. The timber of the hendock is very 

 durable, tough, and somewhat stringy, loose-grained, but is said to resist 

 wet ; it is used for granary flooring, rail-ties, and some other pur- 

 poses in out-door work. The bark is used largely in tanning. The 



