10S THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



The localities for I. Sisyrinchium printed in this manner occupy 

 very nearly two whole pages ! In the same way each part o( the 

 flower has a line allotted to it, even when it is not described: 

 thus (p. 105) :— 



" Crests, large triangular, 

 Stigma, 

 Filaments, 

 Anthers, 

 Pollen." 

 Book-references appear in similar fashion, even when the same 

 author and the same work are quoted ; we take from the same page : 

 " Hance in Journ. Bot. xiii. p. 196 (1875) 

 xiv. p. 75 (1876)." 

 It is unnecessary to point out the effect of this method on the 

 appearance of a folio page. 



Even more open to criticism is the typography of the volume. 

 Every one knows how 7 greatly reference to a book is facilitated by 

 a judicious employment of the resources of type ; this handsome 

 work however is printed almost throughout in one font of lower 

 case type and one of italics. The former is employed for text, 

 book-references, localities, countries, and collectors' names ; the 

 latter for synonyms, names of species and varieties (except 

 for heading of each), for parts of the plant (in Latin and 

 English), headings of groups ; the use of capitals (large) is 

 reserved for headings of groups and (small) for the words 

 " Plate," " Synonyms," and "Distribution"; clarendon appears 

 only for the sectional name on page-headings. The heading of 

 each species appears in the curious form : — 

 " f ! I. CLABKEI 

 (Plate V) 

 Baker, Hdk. Irid. p. 25 (1892)," &c. 

 The i and } employed throughout indicate respectively that Mr. 

 Dykes has grown and flowered the plant and raised it from seed ; 

 the dissociation of the name from its authority is odd, but far 

 stranger is the placing of the name of the section where the 

 authority usually stands; e.g., I. persica Juno." The page- 

 headings contain only the names of sections w T here the name 

 of the species beneath should appear ; those names which 

 11 probably represent plants that have no real claim to specific 

 lank," but are "retained here since they are of some use in 

 the garden to denote certain classes of hybrids," are in no 

 way differentiated in type or by special heading from the species 

 retained ; had these latter been numbered, as is usually the case 

 in monographs, some indication of their different position would 

 have been apparent, but unfortunately this is not the case. On the 

 other hand, the names of species which have been fully described 

 as such, but of which Mr. Dykes has been unable to obtain speci- 

 mens, are sometimes printed in lower case italics (see p. 209). 



The printing of the index, how T ever, is quite satisfactory ; the 

 species retained are in black type, which is also employed for 



