102 THE NEW "index KEWENSIS." 



literally at random — does any one suppose that Mr. J. E. Jackson's 

 "Pine Wool Carpets," Mr. Nicholson's "History of the White 

 Lilac Industry," Mr. Watson's " Plants in Flower at Kew," Dr. 

 Dyer's " Effect of Past Winter on Shrubs at Kew," Mr. Hemsley's 

 "Ornamental Grasses and Sedges [from the German of C. Bouche] ," 

 or the same author's "A Graceful Wall or Eock Shrub," are of 

 permanent value ? Yet the eighty-four pages absolutely teem with 

 pot-boilers of this kind — things which assuredly in most cases their 

 authors will have forgotten almost before the money received for 

 them has been spent. One wonders what are the " articles of 

 merely ephemeral interest," if those just cited are of lasting renown. 

 Their inclusion makes certain omissions the more remarkable — the 

 Editor of this Journal, for example, during his two years at the Kew 

 Herbarium, printed several notes which are included in the Eoyal 

 Society's CaUdoiine of Scientific Papers, but his name does not appear 

 in Mr. Jackson's list. A more noteworthy omission is that of Mr. 

 Baker's monograph of Brazilian Ferns, published in the Flora 

 Brasiliensis in 1870. 



It is naturally a matter of gratification to us to notice how large 

 a proportion of the more important papers in the list have been 

 published in this Journal. We find, however, no reference to the 

 fact that for some years Kew was represented on the editorial staff" 

 by Mr. J. G. Baker (1870-75) and Mr. Spencer Moore (1877-79). 



The papers are arranged alphabetically, each year being treated 

 separately. But instead of the author's name standing boldly at the 

 beginning of each line, as it does in every good catalogue, it comes 

 after the title. This arrangement makes the list extremely difficult 

 to consult, as any one who tries to use it will at once discover. 

 There is no sort of index, although one is foreshadowed in a some- 

 what enigmatical sentence in the Gardeners' C/irunicle, which runs : 

 "The arrangement is chronological, an inconvenience not com- 

 pensated for by the presence of an index of names and subjects 

 which we hope may be supplied on another occasion." At present, 

 supposing that anybody wants to know what some one more or less 

 connected with Kew wrote upon some subject having some (or no) 

 connection with the Eoyal Gardens, he may possibly be able to find 

 it should he happen to know the year in which it was published, 

 always supposing that the contribution was not too "ephemeral" 

 for inclusion, or had not been overlooked. It may be possible to 

 limit the usefulness of any publication more strictly than tljis, but we 

 doubt it ; yet it must be remembered that the Times has told us that 

 "no reasonable man can doubt that the publication of the Bulletin 

 is one of the most useful functions discharged by Kew Gardens " ! 



A list of this kind might have been of some service if it had 

 supplied information on sundry small but important points connected 

 with the dates of publication of certain Kew works — such, for 

 example, as the dates of the parts of the Flora Antarctica. In any 

 case, erroneous statements should have been guarded against — such 

 as entering Nos. 97-108 of the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information 

 as published in 1895, when the last bears on its front page the date 

 of January, 1896. 



