84 



TITK JOUKXAL OF BOT INI 



Manual, should encourage outdoor investigation and study. The 

 volume throughout is profusely illustrated with text-figures, and there 

 are eight attractive, though rather crude, whole-page illustrations in 

 colour. The first 160 pages are occupied by morphology on the usual 

 lines; the systematic pari of about equal length follows, while the 

 .Manual is concluded by two Appendixes, a glossarv, and an index. 

 The second Appendix consists of an analytical key to the families of 

 Indian plants. 



It is more than half a century since Oliver puhlished his First 

 Bonk of Indian Botany and, although it may he true, as Bose writes 

 m his Foreword, that " the text- books of Botany commonlv used in 

 India are not exactly suited to the requirements of' the [ndian "student," 

 we must not forget Rangachari's excellent Elementary Botany for 

 India, puhlished a few years ago, in which he uses only Indian plants 

 to illustrate his points. In Eose's Manual, however, [ndian botanical 

 students who can afford to buy it will have a hook of convenienl 

 pocket size, full of digestible information, remarkably well printed, 

 and nearly free from typographical or botanical mistakes. 



S. T. Dfnx. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



Willtam Whitwell was born at Manchester, on October 30, 

 1839. ' His early days were spent at Llansaintffraid, where he imbibed 

 the love for nature which was a dominant feature in bis life; his 

 special interest in botany dates from 1853, when he was a clerk in 

 a _ warehouse at Leicester; in 1859 he entered the Taxes branch 

 of the Inland Revenue, in which he continued until his retirement 

 in 1902. Whit-well's official duties led to his residence in various 

 localities; he took the opportunity thus presented to investigate the 

 botany of the districts, whence resulted the records from East York- 

 shire. Shropshire, Flint, Montgomery. Cheshire, Surrey, and Sussex, 

 puhlished in this Journal between *1SS7 and 1902. Although not 

 a critical botanist, Whitwell was an exceedingly careful observer and 

 collector; he was also a good correspondent : his specimens, labelled 

 in his neat hand, are found in many collections. His puhlished com- 

 munications were usually brief, the longest being the papers on 

 Arenaria gothica (Journ. Bot. 1889, 345) and Botrychiuin matri- 

 caricefolium (Journ. Bot. 1S98, 291). He contributed to Dr. Y. A. 

 Lees's Flora of West Yorkshire, for which be compiled the index, 

 and published in The Naturalist (1893, 25-40) notes on plants 

 of the same region from the herbarium of John Tatham ( 1793-187.") i, 

 of whom he gave some account. A booklet entitled A Bachelor's 

 Christmas Bay, privately printed hut widely distributed, is a charm- 

 ing account of a winter walk, and conveyed' to those who read it the 

 impression of the gentle and sympathetic nature which endeared 

 Whitwell to so many friends. In 1902 he left South London, where 

 he was last officially employed, for Hagley in Warwickshire, close to 

 the Clent Hills ; subsequently he moved to Warley Green, Knowle, 

 Warwickshire, where he died on Dec. 1G of last" year. Towards 

 the end of his life the deafness from which lie had long suffered 

 become total. As may he conjectured from the title of his booklet. 



