Reviews of Books. 6i 



Familiar Wild Flowers. By F. Edward Hulme, F.L.S., F.S.A. Cassell, 

 Petter, and Galpin, London and Xew York. 



The firstpartof thisbeautifully jrot-up little work containsprettilycoloured 

 plates and interestino- descriptions of the Field Convolvulus {Convolvulus 

 arvrnsis), and the Field Uo^e(Rosa arvensis), two of the j^rettiest and most 

 graceful of our wild flowers ; which hold out good promise that the work will 

 form, when complete, a useful and elegant book on "nature's loveliest 

 gems," suitable either for the drawing-room table or the fireside of the 

 cottager, and will fully meet the wants of a numerous class of lovers of our 

 wild flowers, who have neither time nor inclination to wade through the dry 

 technicalities of a complete scientific British Flora, but who will scan with 

 pleasure and benefit the pages of this pleasant and entertaining addition to the 

 literature of our native wild flowers. The plates and designs are drawn with 

 considerable care, and the colouring nicely done, if not exactly true to nature, 

 so thatwith the assistance of the plates and designs, and the technical descrip- 

 tions given in a gossipy and easily understood style, amateur lovers of wild 

 flowers will have no difficulty in finding the name and learning something of 

 the history and uses of the beautiful flowers they meet with in their rambles 

 over the hills and dales and through the flowery woods and lanes of the 

 couutrv. 



Discovery of a New Conifer in Europe. 



It inhabits the mountains of those "unhappy" countries, Servia, Bosnia, and 

 Montenegro, and Dr. Paucie is the botanist who, after much consideration and 

 research, and after taking the opinion of the late A. Braun, E. Koch, and 

 others, has described it as a new species under the name of Pinus Omorika. 

 It belongs to the Abies section, and is most nearly allied to P. orientalis. 

 Oraorika ^'s he Servian name of this tree, which Dr. Paticie describes as beirg 

 of gigantic stature, equalling if not exceeding, the loftiest of its Eurrpean 

 conger e's. It is of slender habit, with relatively short branches forming a 

 pyramidal crown ; bark of the trunk brown-red, peeling off, the fragments 

 often heaped up in great quantity around the base of the trunk. The lower 

 branches pendent, with the extremities only directed upwards. Needles (leaves) 

 of a silver-grey hue, small and short (about five lines long), usually obtuse; 

 cones oval-oblong, two inches long, at first erect, gradually assuming a 

 horizontal position, and finally pendent ; when young of a beautiful violet 

 colour, when mature reddisd brown, with an intermixture of ash-grey. 

 Scales ofa roundish shape, faintly striated, and unequally toothed in the upper 

 part. The foregoing particulars are from a lengthy article by Carl Belle in 

 the Berlin Horticultural Society's Journal. Dr. Reichenbach contributes some 

 notes on the same subject to the Botmiische Zeitunq, N.8., 1877, from which it 

 appears this tree—" whether species, variety, or climatic form " — is known by 

 the name Omorika from the Adriatic to the Danube ; and it is supposed that it 

 was formerly more widely dispersed than appears to be the case at present. 

 This is founded on the assumption that, because the name is so widely under- 

 stood, the tree yields a valuable timber. Grisebach regards it as a variety of 

 P. orientalis, but whether distinct or not it is none the le?s interesting, and 

 another illustration of the distribution of Coniferna as exemplified by the 

 Cedars, Pinus Peuce of Grisebach, &c. Both Eeichenbach and BoUe had 

 specimens before them, as well as a paper on the subject by Paucie him- 

 self. — Gardener s Chronicle. 



