190 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



cannot be claimed by one whose visits to the Lake Country have 

 been as "few and far between" as those of the present writer. 

 But it may be well, in drawing attention to this welcome addition 

 to our local floras, — which fortunately appears in good time for use 

 during the present season, — to point out that it differs materially 

 from works of the same kind in its mode of treatment. Instead of 

 the elaborate system of more or less numerous districts and sub- 

 districts which have found favour with recent workers, Mr. Baker 

 summarises the distribution of each plant in a manner which at 

 first sight strikes the reader as somewhat superficial. But it is 

 only at first sight that such a view can be entertained. Mr. Baker's 

 knowledge and experience as a field botanist, a herbarium student, 

 and a practised botanical author, have enabled him to condense his 

 information in a manner which, we think, few could successfully 

 imitate. His "leading purpose," as Mr. Watson said of his 

 ' Topographical Botany,' "is to adduce and arrange personal testi- 

 mony in a very condensed form " ; and he has succeeded in this 

 without losing, as far as we are able to judge, any important 

 details. The generalising faculty here displayed, evident in the 

 various monographs with which the author has enriched con- 

 temporary botanical literature, has always seemed to us one of 

 Mr. Baker's strongest points, the only disadvantage connected 

 with it being that those possessed of less intimate acquaintance 

 with their district may be led to attempt to generalise from in- 

 sufficient data concerning the plants of their neighbourhood. 



The Flora of the Lake district is intended by its author as a 

 field book, rather than as a volume for the study ; and to this must 

 be attributed the comparative absence of such notes on the life- 

 history of the plants recorded, which made Mr. Briggs' ' Flora of 

 Plymouth ' improving and instructive reading even to those who 

 were quite unacquainted with Devonshire botany. Not that even 

 these are altogether wanting ; while the topographical and biblio- 

 graphical introduction is excellently done. This inadequate notice 

 will, we hope, draw the attention of our readers to a work which is 

 indispensable to the students of English plants. 



The recently published part of the ' Transactions of the 

 Botanical Society of Edinburgh ' (xvi. pt. I.) contains obituary 

 notices of George Dickie, Eichard Parnell and G. H. K. Thwaites, 

 Oswald Heer, J. L. Paterson, T. H. Corry, and John Sadler ; 

 with papers on ' llubHs Lcrsii and Inverness plants,' by Dr. 

 Mactier; 'proliferous first fronds of seedling British Ferns,' by 

 C. T. Druery ; ' Flora of Berwickshire,' by C. Stuart and G. Mac- 

 farlane ; ' the affinities of the genus Pothocites,' by E Kidston ; 

 ' the multinucleated condition of the Vegetable Cell,' by A. E. 

 Grant ; ' on Coal incrusting large Pinaceous Fossil Stems,' by 

 A. Tavlor ; ' on a divarication of the Primrose,' by C. Howie ; ' an 

 abnormal form of Listcra cordata, and localities for Cornish plants,' 

 by T. H. Corry ;' ' a Type Botanic Garden,' by P. Geddes ; ' Statis- 

 tics of Topographical Botany in Scotland,' by S. Grieve ; 'half-hardy 

 plants on the Coast of Arran,' by D. Landsborough ; ' the May 



