368 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



"No complimentary copies; no free samples; no exchanges; no 

 advertisements in tlie text ; no premiums ; no discount to agents — 

 the whole income going to make it better and larger! Botany 

 and horticultural science will receive the greatest attention in the 

 first numbers; botanists are invited to publish new species in its 

 pages." 



In Thwiif/h Uiiknoum African Co2intrles (London: Edward Arnold; 

 21s. net) Dr. Donaldson Smith gives an account of his expedition — 

 the first undertaken — from Somaliland to Lake Rudolf. It is a 

 handsome volume, well prhited and illustrated, but its weight 

 (4 It). 5^ oz.), owing to the paper employed, renders it a serious 

 addition to a traveller's impedimenta. The natural history of the 

 expedition is dealt with in a series of appendixes ; but the list of 

 Dr. Smith's plants which was drawn up for him at the British 

 Museum, where the specimens are deposited, is not included. 

 This is to be regretted, as the collection contained many interesting 

 species, the most remarkable of which were described in this Journal 

 for 1896 ; one plate illustrating the new genera, Donaldsonia and 

 GiUettia [Anther icopsis), is reproduced in the volume. 



Mr. E. a. Martin, whose Nature-Chat we notice on another 

 page, must look to his laurels : as an interpreter of Nature's problems 

 he is being run very close by a Mr. Harry Lowerison, who is con- 

 tributing to London a series of papers entitled " The Naturalist in 

 London." Here is an extract; those who wish to observe the re- 

 markable "geranium in the border" will find it in Finsbury Park. 

 "Here is a plant with the general habit and appearance of privet, 

 only the leaves are broader and toothed, and the stamens are so long 

 and feathery that one is not surprised to read the label and find that 

 the shrub is really a variety of spirea. Many such 'gardeners 

 varieties' we have in the parks. Students of the problems that 

 underlie variation will find ample materials here ready to their hand. 

 As a case in point, we can stop before this geranium in the border. 

 Is it a simple crane's-bill that has originally, itself or forbears, 

 grown in the fields, inadvertently been transplanted here, found 

 itself in a richer soil, and, with better opportunities, made a big 

 stride forward in size and fragrance ? Or, on the other hand, was 

 it a pot plant neglected and starved, and consequently shrivelled, 

 till some pitying gardener gave it a chance of better things in the 

 open parterre ? One does not know, but here in a humble plant 

 may be one of the 'missing links' that the non-scientific world 

 taunted the great Darwin with not being able to produce. Here, 

 continuing the same line of thought, is the Crattei/ns (jrandiflora, in 

 English the large flowered hawthorn, a variety that has been for 

 long cultivated for its big white or creamy corolla. Another variety 

 of the same species I call the beech-leaved hawthorn, as under 

 cultivation and careful manipulation it has lost the lobes that dis- 

 tinguish the acanthus leaf, and the leaf margins now show an 

 unbroken line like those of the beech." 



