THE CAMBRIDGE BRITISH ELORA 27 



the way regarded Aconitum as an introduction, thought it had 

 " probably grown there from time immemorial," and mentions that 

 its discoverer in 1805 met two fishermen who " could recollect having 

 gathered its flowers sixty or seventy years ago " : it was however not 

 noticed by Banks on his visit in 1773. 



We cannot conclude this notice without referring to and endorsing 

 a protest made by Dr. Rendle in his review of the book in Nature 

 for Nov. 11, 1920. We had intended to pass the matter by with the 

 remark that we did not accept as accurate the interpretation, 

 worded in a needlessly offensive manner, placed by Dr. Moss on a 

 notice in the Journal ; but Dr. Rendle has expressed on general 

 grounds what might have appeared on our part the outcome of a 

 personal grievance. His protest is as follows : — 



" It is to be regretted that personal matters should have been 

 introduced into a work of this kind. The Cambridge British Flora 

 will, presumably, take rank as a standard work, a presentation of the 

 knowledge and views of eminent British botanists at a period in 

 the history of botany, and to perpetuate the differences of opinion 

 which have arisen on matters of very secondary importance detracts 

 from the dignity which such a work should possess. The syndics of 

 the Cambridge University Press would have been well advised if they 

 had exercised a fatherly censorship on several paragraphs in the 

 introduction to the present volume." 



Conifers and their Characteristics. By Charles Co-LTMAisr-RoGERS. 

 With Illustrations. Pp. xiii, 333. John Murray. Price21s.net. 



The genera of Goniferce, now about 40 in number, remnants of a 

 very ancient and once more varied group, are not very difficult to 

 discriminate — when, at least, both cone- and leaf-characters are avail- 

 able ; nor when growing in a wild state do the small number of 

 species inhabiting any one country present any very great difficulties. 

 The great majority of the 380 species which the Order comprises are 

 natives of temperate climates, so that more than 200 of them are 

 cultivated side by side in our British pinetums, and then the diffi- 

 culty of distinguishing between species nearly allied to one another, 

 though from different regions, is considerable As Mr. Coltman- 

 Kogers says in his " Prefatory," " it is hardly possible to carry into 

 a friend's collection of growing trees the seven volumes of Elwes and 

 Henry's Trees, Mr. Bean's two, Mr. Clinton Baker's, or even the one 

 volume of Veitch's Manual.' 1 ' 1 A pocketable key to the genera and 

 species is, therefore, unquestionably a desideratum among the many 

 who — whether as botanists, as growers, or otherwise — take an interest 

 in conifers. It is, perhaps, hardly possible, even with the aid of a 

 copious glossary, to render such a key practically useful to the non- 

 botanical without the assistance of figures. The general habit of 

 growth can, perhaps, be adequately described in words ; and all that 

 is needed in the form of twig, leaf, and cone can be fully illustrated 

 in black-and-white outline-drawings in the text, without that use of 

 colour-printing and loaded paper which makes Graf Silva Tarouca's 



