58 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



The Clarendon Press has issued a handsome volume on the 

 ' Comparative Anatomy of the Vegetative Organs of the Phanero- 

 gams and Ferns,' a translation by Messrs. F. 0. Bower and D. H. 

 Scott of Prof. De Bary's important work. We hope at a future 

 date to notice this at greater length, so will now content ourselves 

 with this reference. 



The translation of M. DeCandolle's ' Origin of Cultivated Plants,' 

 which has been for some time anxiously looked for, has been pub- 

 lished by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. Probably no more 

 valuable work, whether for reading or for reference, has appeared 

 in the ' International Scientific Series,' of which it forms a volume. 

 When noticing the original French issue (Journ. Bot. 1883, 50), we 

 paid our tribute to the exhaustive nature of the work ; it only 

 remains to add that the English version is even more complete, 

 being enriched with additions by the author embodying some of the 

 information given in the valuable papers published by Drs. Asa 

 Gray and Trumball in the 'American Journal of Science ' since the 

 issue of M. DeCandolle's volume. 



Mr. Murray issues a ' Dictionary of the English Names of 

 Plants,' compiled by Mr. William Miller. The book was originally 

 advertised under the title of a ' Dictionary of English Plant-names,' 

 but that title had already been employed by Messrs. Britten and 

 Holland for their work issued by the English Dialect Society. It 

 is perhaps not strange that such should have been the case, as the 

 title must have been very familiar to the compiler, who has very 

 freely availed himself of the Dialect Society's w^ork, although be 

 makes no reference to the source from which many of his names 

 are taken. That this is the case can easily be shown : Mr. Miller 

 on his first page, for example, under the heading "Adder," gives 

 nine names, eight of which are to be found in the ' Dictionary of 

 English Plant-names,' all of them cited or entered there on in- 

 formation hitherto unpublished, or quoted from out-of-the-way 

 sources. On the same page the error by which Messrs. Britten 

 and Holland inadvertently cited "Affadil" as an equivalent for 

 Nrnxissus Fseudu-narcisHUs is unhesitatingly followed. The book is 

 well printed and comprehensive ; we have no reason to doubt the 

 prefatory statement that it contains 15,000 names, but on what 

 ground these are styled "English" it is not easy to understand. 

 Under the heading " Stonecrop," for instance, are no less than 

 fifty-three entries ; but we fail to see what advantage such titles as 

 "Ditch Stonecrop of N. America," " Ewers's Stonecrop," "Mee- 

 han's Stonecrop," "Pale rose-coloured Stonecrop," "Variegated 

 Japanese Stonecrop," "Wightmann's Stonecrop," and the like 

 have over their Latin equivalents. 



The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has published 

 a handsome volume of figures of all our British ferns, with 

 text, under the title of ' The Fern Portfolio.' The author, Mr. 

 F. Gr. Heath, has, as is well known, published several volumes on 

 this subject, but none have seemed to us so satisfactory as the 

 present. We think he a little over-estimates the amount of time 

 and labour which the execution of the work has required ; but he 



