NOTICES OP BOOKS. 31 7 



brought together. A full index to the modern names concludes the 

 volume, and forms the readiest means of ascertaining the whole 

 contents of the garden. These modern species amount to 855, and 

 comprehend a remarkable assemblage of plants, certainly as a whole 

 very different, both in what it contains and in what it is deficient, from 

 that which any garden at the present day would exhibit. To a basis 

 of old-fashioned perennials, favourites here long before Gerard's 

 time — Iris, Anemone, Lychnis, Lu-pinus and the like — bulbs like Nar- 

 cissus and long-cultivated shrubs like the Roses, he had added a large 

 collection of rare British plants (such as Actcsa spicata, Goodyera 

 repens and many other Orchids), many S. European and Mediterranean 

 annuals grown from seeds sent home by his numerous correspondents, 

 and plants of special interest and novelty derived from cultivators and 

 gardens abroad, especially from llobin, keeper of the royal garden at 

 Paris, and Lord Edward Zouch at Constantinople. Amongst those 

 from the former was Datura Metel, whilst D. Stramonium was intro- 

 duced by the latter. Potatoes and Tobacco were both in the garden ; 

 the former is catalogued as " Papus orbicularis, Bastard Potatoes " (to 

 distinguish it from " Papus Hispanorum, Spanish Potatoes," which is 

 JBatatus edulis), the latter as " Tahaco, Indian Tobacco, or Henbane of 

 Peru." Attention has previously been called in this Journal (1871, 

 p. 163) to Acorus Calamus as having not improbably originated in this 

 country from Gerard's garden, where it may have been received 

 from Robin, who grew it at Paris. 



It is not possible to go into any further details, and the purely 

 horticultural aspect of the volume is beyond the province of these 

 pages. We have only to express the thanks of botanists to the editor, 

 who has spared neither time, trouble, nor expense in his work, and 

 has the satisfaction of distributing a very complete and accurate book, 

 and an elegant memorial of a man of note in the history of British 

 gardening and botany. H. T. 



Composite Indicce descriptas et secus Genera Benthamii ordinatse ; a 

 C. B. Clarke. Calcutta. 1876. 



This is a laborious work of over 350 pages, consisting of a complete 

 descriptive monograph of the Compositas of Peninsular India. It 

 would, of course, be out of the question to attempt criticism of the 

 mass of detail here presented, which, indeed, appears to have been 

 arranged with great care, resulting in a solid addition to the know- 

 ledge of Indian botany. An appendix gives in a clear tabular form 

 the geographical distribution of each species through the nine divisions 

 into which India has been divided for the purpose. Erom this it 

 appears that the JSTorth, West, and Central Himalaya are the richest 

 areas in plants of this Order, and that the poorest is the Gangetic plain. 

 This latter district has "for a moist tropical region a poverty-stricken 

 flora. Dr. T. Anderson considered that in all alluvial Bengal, a very 

 enormous square mileage, not 600 Phsenogams were to found, and of 

 these a large number doubtfully indigenous. This poverty, greater 

 by far than that of a single English county, appears less remarkable 

 when we recollect that it results because we confine our attention to 

 one particular kind of soil." Some comparisons with Mr. Bentham's 

 elaborate tables of distribution conclude the volume, which must prove 



