CONSPECTUS FLORAE AFRlCiE. 87 



flowerless. In cultivation tiie plant attains 2 ft., the stems branch, 

 the lower leaves are broader, and more deeply toothed. A wild 

 plant found on river-side rocks in the Hepste Glen, South Brecon- 

 shire, bears all the features of the cultivated plant : and garden 

 specimens raised from seed of this river-side plant were in- 

 distinguishable from those raised in the same soil and conditions 

 from the plant of the mountain cliffs. Log. : Mountain cliffs at 

 from 2000 to 2500 ft., in the Brecon Beacon range ; first gatliered 

 in 1886. Central cliff of the Beacons ; Y-fan-big; Craig-y-gledsian 

 — all on the old red sandstone. Flowering in August. I wish to 

 acknowledge much kind help from Mr. F. J. Hanbury, F.L.S., in 

 drawing up the above description. — Augustin Ley. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Conspechis Flora; Africa . . . par Th. Durand & Hans Schinz. 

 Vol. V. Monocotyledone^e & Gymnosperme®. Bruxelles : 

 1895. 8vo, pp. 977. 



The large number of systematic botanists who are at the present 

 time working at African plants will hail with delight this instalment 

 of a work which, when completed, will materially lessen their labours, 

 and greatly diminish the difficulties of the botanists who live to take 

 part in the completion of the two African floras of which fragments 

 have been given to the world. lu this Conspectus we have brought 

 together, by men admirably qualified for the task, a singularly 

 complete list of the species known to inhabit Africa, with references 

 to the places where they have been described, and other literature 

 concerning them ; a considerable amount of synonymy ; an indi- 

 cation of distribution ; and, in many instances, citations of collectors 

 and their numbers. Even the dates of publication — the omission of 

 which is the one great defect of the Index Kewetisis — are here given; 

 and we shall thus have, within the compass of five handy volumes, 

 a compendium of the history of African plants brought up to the 

 time of publication. When it is remembered that the Flora Cupensis 

 stopped (at CainpanulacecE) in 1865, and the Flora of Trojyical Africa 

 (at Fbenacete) in 1877, and that ever since these dates the publication 

 of Cape and Tropical African species has proceeded steadily and 

 rapidly both at home and abroad, we can form some notion of the 

 amount of material which Messrs. Durand and Schinz have had to 

 incorporate in their Conspectus, and of the boon which they have 

 conferred upon their fellow-botanists. 



Mr. Kendle (Joum. But. 1893, 346) refers to "a tradition which 

 the younger botanists have received from their fathers of a con- 

 tinuation of the Flora Capensis'^ : and this is hardly an exaggerated 

 way of putting it. For it is nearly twenty-three years ago since the 

 following paragraph appeared in these pages: — "The Parliament of 

 the Gape of Good Hope has voted a grant of money towards the 

 publication of the continuation of the Flora Capensis. Professor 



